To Live, Perchance to Dream
by MegK1978
Summary: The newly resurrected Buffy has to deal with a friend the Scoobies had made while she was dead, and a hitwoman is out to get her--a 1000 yr old Slayer turned to a vamp... and doesn't react to stakes. NOW COMPLETE, assuming the net didn't destroy it
1. The day the Slayer Un-died

Author's note: Again, this is co-written with my brother, who truly has an uncanny sense for the written word. The prologue is during the episodes "Bargaining" and "After Life", the chapters after "Flooded". Spoilers shouldn't be much more than "Once More, With Feeling" and "Wrecked".

Co-Author's note: You will review this one.  Either that or I will find stories you've written and give them so many bad reviews the server will shut down.

Author's note reprise: Ignore him

Co-author's note, 2: Ignore me?  If you thought Marco was bad… Besides, all the fight scenes are mine, as are almost all of the Marco's.  My sister specializes in the Spike stuff.  She likes the bloodsucker, go figure.  Also recall that in one of my sister's _other_ stories, she resurrected the half-demon, part Irish Allen Francis Doyle, who had died long ago and far away in California, but refuses to stay dead, like certain other people in Joss Whedon's universe.  We shall render unto Whedon what belongs to Whedon, the rest belong to us.

**To Live, Perchance to Dream**

Prologue: The Day the Slayer Un-Died.

Marco Cattalano was annoyed enough to kill those boisterous motorcycle demons driving by his college campus.  

_Actually, killing them sounds like a good plan._

The tall, part Irish blond opened his closet and removed the crossbow he'd forgotten to give back to the Magic Box.  He often wondered how he'd wandered back to the dorms without anyone noticing it.  He slid a bolt into the "chamber" and pulled the wire back, setting it to fire.  

He walked out into the street and headed for someplace simple, Main Street, so he'd have plenty of targets.  He had a midterm in another day or two, but he had been studying for days on end, and this would be a good way to kill time. 

He walked along the devastation of the street, and he smiled an annoying little smile.  The stores were in flames, cars were smashed, and several of the demon motorcyclists were gathered together, loading up on stolen wares while the others continued to loot and pillage.

Marco glanced at one popping a wheelie with the front tire in the air.  He casually fired a bolt into the back tire.  The motorcycle came down with a crash and dropped forward.  When it landed on the front wheel, the cycle flipped end over end through the air and into a cluster of gang demons and their vehicles.  He had to admit the resulting explosion was quite impressive.

He melted into the resulting confusion; i.e., he ran like a vampire chased by a convention of priests.  

About an hour or so into the havoc and chaos, Marco literally tripped over Buffy Summers… or at least the mechanical sex toy version of her, reprogrammed to replace the Slayer in her fighting capacity, though his friend Willow was still working on the wit and wisdom of the Slayer.  It didn't look like she'd _ever_ get there, mainly because its arms and legs had been ripped off the torso.  

Marco knelt down, looking over the machine, with its light blonde hair and blue-green eyes; he couldn't tell if they were one or the other.  Even he could see why Spike had had this blasted machine built; Buffy had been quite pretty…at the very least, her face was interesting.  However, Marco still wondered why Spike had fallen in love with the real thing in the first place, considering he was a vampire, had dealt in wholesale slaughter for over a century, and her job was to kill things like him.

The Buffybot twitched a little and stared at Marco.  "Buffy."

He furrowed his brow, wondering if the recognition program was as shot as the rest.  In mid-thought, the crash and boom of a building ripped through his thoughts.  He looked up toward the sight of Mount Doom.  "Mount Doom" was his nickname for the Eiffel Tower rip-off built by the insane minions of the hell god Glorificus—better known to most as Glory, and to Marco as "the blonde loony."  He recalled that Buffy—the real Buffy—had taken a swan dive from the top of Mount Doom, straight onto the bricks below after closing a portal to Hell by going through it.  For some reason, three months later, it was still standing.  In New York, where Marco had been born and raised, any construction built without a permit would have been torn town within three to seven days, maybe less.  However, the darn thing was still there, though it had been constructed for a single, temporary purpose—a one-hour opening of a portal into a hell dimension.  

Marco glanced toward the robot and briefly pondered its last word.  Willow was a witch, in one of the literal senses of the term.  _Could she have…?_

"What the hell are _you_ doing out here?" came the painful cockney accent of Spike, the peroxide blond vampire who had been "neutered" by a chip planted in his head by an Area-51 government project known as the Initiative. He couldn't harm humans, even to feed or defend himself, but he still had the sucky attitude of an annoying vampire. 

"What is it with everyone tonight, eh?" the tall, lanky vamp asked, coming toward Marco, dressed in his ever-present black shirt, pants, and leather duster.  "Can't anyone stay home?  _Out_ of the bloody line of fire?"

The creak and crash of metal kept Marco from replying.  The human leapt into a run, straight for Mount Doom.  He was there to see the last moments of its collapse.  "Darn well about time."

"It's all right. You're alive. And you're home."

He snapped his head toward the voice of the Vampire Slayer's sister, Dawn.  His eyes widened slightly as he focused on the Slayer herself.  Dawn's arms were around her neck, and both of them were on the ground, though Buffy's eyes were slightly dazed and unfocused.  Marco dropped the crossbow and approached as Spike's usual utterance of "bloody hell" stayed in the background of his mind. 

Marco slowly closed in on them.  It wasn't natural.  Buffy was dead.  It had to have been a zombie—a well-preserved zombie, but one nonetheless.  Resurrection wasn't possible, unless of course God _really_ wanted this Slayer to stay alive, and Marco knew God didn't play such games in the universe He created.  He knelt down in front of Buffy's dazed eyes and looked into them, a semi-pleading smile on his face, asking what he could do for her.

After he had helped Dawn get Buffy to the Summers' house on Revello Drive, he was walking to the dorm when he found Willow Rosenburg with her accompanying hoard of "Scoobies."  The bright, flowing red hair and blue eyes stood out plainly, even in the darkness.  He heard them talking about how Buffy was when she came back.

Hearing this, Marco knew what she had done, and now fully understood the line from the Bible: "Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live."

He was annoyed.

Marco fumed on the bed in his dorm room, staring angrily at the ceiling. How could Willow do such a thing, and to her best friend, no less? He had really thought he'd convinced her not to worry, that Buffy was in heaven as her reward for sacrificing herself for the world multiple times. 

He heard the familiar knock at his door. He really did not want to deal with her right now. "If that's Willow, go away."

"Marco, what is it?" she asked.  

"Willow, if you come in here, I'm going to do something I might regret. Please don't make me deal with you right now; it wouldn't be good for either of us."

"You haven't even looked at me since we beat back that demon we made."

Marco sat up straight and growled.  His right eye twitched with rage.  "_We_?" he snarled.  He sprang to the door and ripped it open.  Willow stood at the threshold in a pink turtleneck sweater and navy blue slacks.  "Inside."

He slammed the door behind her and whirled upon her.  "You didn't tell me about what you were doing.  You even had the good sense not to tell _Spike_ what you were doing!  You know why?  Because we knew what you were doing was _wrong_.  Don't you _get_ that?  How did you even convince the others to go along?  Tell them that mystical energy could have dragged her soul into Hell? That only works if she deserved to go there, or if she were dropped in, body and all, like Angel.  Since we both _know _neither happened—"

Willow's eyes flared.  "Buffy told us she was tortured.  She said she was in Hell.  She—"

Marco cut her off with a leveling gaze, and his eyes became as cold as winter skies in Alaska.  "And you _believe _her?"


	2. A Family Affair

**Chapter 1: A Family Affair**

**Three weeks later.**

Spike had to watch the young blond woman carefully, ever since she'd come into Sunnydale on the evening train from LAX. She carted a small suitcase on wheels behind her, a small saddlebag of a purse slung across her back. Her figure looked good, but there seemed to be a few inches about the hips that refused to go away. A scarf was tied around her head to keep her short hair out of her face. She continuously consulted a scrap of paper through the gold wire-rim glasses perched on her nose, seeming completely oblivious to her surroundings asshe hummed the theme to _The Godfather_.  

He thought she might as well be sporting a sign announcing, "I'm O-pos and won't fight back. Drain me, please."

Sure enough, just as she was passing one of the town's many graveyards, a dirt-covered fledgling decided to do just that, springing out in front of her from the bushes.

To Spike's surprise, she didn't even cry out in alarm, let alone scream for her life. "Oh you have _got_ to be kidding me!" she said in a tone of supreme exasperation. The fledgling stopped, looking confused at her lack of fear. "I'm not even in town a half-hour, and you decide to try picking up the helpless newbie human? Guess what, I'm unimpressed."

Then the fledgling lunged and grabbed her arms, only to get a stake shoved through the heart where she'd hidden it up her jacket sleeve. She spit out the dust that had gotten into her mouth. "Serves you right."

Spike smiled to himself at this woman, who was obviously _not_ a Slayer—even though he'd been expecting a third one since Buffy had died months ago. He knew she was no Slayer because she never saw or heard the second vampire creeping up behind her. Spike took his cue and dusted him before he could even come close.

The blonde turned quickly, stake in hand, just in time to see the vampire disintegrate, revealing Spike standing behind the particles. She looked him over with a quick, critical eye, one corner of her mouth turning up in a small smile. "Thank you."

Spike shrugged, tucking his weapon away. "Gotta watch out for the ones that try for a sneak attack."

She slipped the stake up her sleeve again. "I'll keep that in mind." She was about to turn away to continue on to her destination, when she stopped and faced him again. "You're not a native, but do you know your way around town?"

He blinked. "Yeah. Lived here almost two years now. Why d' you ask?"

The little smile appeared again. "Well, I'm severely new, and I need tantamount to a guide. I'm willing to pay—"

Spike held up a hand to stop her. "Don't bother. Where d' y' need t' go?"

"A place called the Magic Box."

He considered her carefully. She had a very open, unassuming face. She knew where she was, where she was going, and most importantly she knew about vampires and other things that went kill in the night. But she would probably get killed just because she didn't know her way around. Best to have Big Bad looking after her.

He finally nodded just when she was beginning to think he'd turn her down. "I know the way. C'mon."

Her small smile was replaced with a bigger grin. "Thanks."

He stayed still, terrifyingly still, holding the knife blade in one hand, waiting to strike.  He summoned all his control and concentration into that one point.  Without warning, he threw his brand-new throwing knife into the target.  

A knock sounded against his door.  He turned, the frown of concentration replaced by a tiny, almost omniscient smile.  "If that's Willow, you can come in."

After living there for over two months, he'd gotten accustomed to never accepting visitors after dark without being very specific about who he invited in. He knew Willow's knock by now, but he liked being cautious anyway. 

The cute redheaded witch walked into the room, as shy as ever, her smile as unsure as 20% of the words from her mouth.  The hair was cut short, almost curling around the neck and the shoulders, staying above the nape.  He didn't like to think of advertising dinner to vampires, but he wasn't up on the latest in fashion, so he let it go.

"Hi.  You busy?" she shyly asked.

_Never so busy that I can't stop for you, _he thought loudly.

The redhead simply smiled and nodded, used to him playing tricks with her telepathy.  Behind Willow was someone he was even more interested in.  He wanted to say her eyes were a marvelous steel blue, but he couldn't swear to it, since she was in the darkness of the doorframe, with the hall lights silhouetting her slender frame and long blonde hair.  The light inside his dorm suite wasn't as high as possible (he liked to work in minimal light for his knife throwing) so her face was in general darkness.  Only those marvelous eyes stood out. 

"Um…" Willow said nervously, worried about her friends liking each other.  She introduced them.  

He smiled his charming smile and stepped forward, one hand forward in friendship.  "It's a pleasure to meet you at last, Ms. Summers.  I'm sorry I haven't been able to go out on patrol, but I've been busy lately."

Buffy Summers stepped into the light of his room and gave her hand.  He seemed familiar in some way, although she couldn't pinpoint where they could have met.  He smelled familiar, and even looked familiar.  "I've heard quite a bit about you from Willow here.  She's been quite excited.  She gets that way sometimes."

He nodded and squeezed her hand firmly, but not enough to hurt.  "I've noticed.  Might I say, Ms. Summers, that you make an absolutely beautiful corpse?"

Buffy hesitated, unsure of what her reaction even should be.  She had been dead once before, but only for a handful of minutes, not months.  "Willow told me about you.  I thought for a moment that she could've been wrong, now I see she was right."

He cocked a brow.  "Coming from Willow, that must be only good."

"She thought you're a pain, but you're worth having around."

"That's a good thing," Willow said.  "I'm not sure it all came out right, though," she added meekly.  

He laughed heartily. "Good, Willow, you're showing taste! Yes, Ms. Summers, I _am_ the epitome of a human hemorrhoid," he declared with pride.  "We have yet to decide whether or not I'm _your_ hemorrhoid."

Buffy cocked her head, wondering about his response.  "Huh?"

"You could find me useful.  It all depends on what you want in a man."

She lowered her head slightly and peered at him with a look that asked if he was serious.

"A… body… man?"  He could see it was a bad choice of words.  "One of your band of Slayers."

"He means a Scooby," Willow translated.

He flinched inwardly at the term.

Buffy's eyes froze open for a moment as a kind of shocked embarrassment took over.  "Oh… Yeah…  I would've gotten that… And how to you want to show you're my type?"

He smiled broadly and arched his eyebrows suggestively.  "Let's roll around a little."  

As they walked, Spike gleaned a few details about this stranger to the Hellmouth. Despite her good enunciation, he could still hear traces of Brooklyn in her voice. Her bright blue eyes were darting around, keeping track of where they were going. He could still smell the sugar and caffeine rushing through her blood and see the fleeting longing in her eyes when they passed a bakery window.

_Fat girl trapped in slim woman's body,_ Spike thought. He looked her over once more in appreciation. _It's still a nice body._

She felt his eyes on her, but chose to ignore him. She still felt a little embarrassed that it took her a month just to burn off the pounds that she had. She still didn't like that her hips still stayed so curved. _Stop it stop it stop obsessing!_ she scolded mentally. _You're here to see him and that's_ it_!_

They finally arrived at the Magic Box, seeing Anya count out the till for the last time before locking up for the night. Her blond head whipped up to see the vampire and the young woman walk in the door, setting off the chime. She gave him a little smile. "Hi, Spike. Everyone's in the back room."

Spike nodded, and motioned to the woman, whose name he still hadn't gotten. "She was on her way here. Thought it might be best if she had someone t' watch her back."

Anya turned her smile on the newcomer. "Hi. What can I do for you that has nothing to do with business, because we're officially closed?"

"Is Marco Cattalano here please?" she asked in return.

He ducked and sidestepped the right cross and hammered his thumb into her shoulder, numbing the muscle.  He slid back before she could deliver a kick that could collapse his chest.  By the time he made it back to his starting point, the effects of his blow wore off and she came at him again.  She delivered a snap kick aimed high, and her foot landed in his waiting double block.  He pushed.  She fell backwards, landed on her hands, and flipped back onto her feet.  She pivoted to deliver a reverse back kick, but he dropped to one knee while she was still in mid-pivot and let the leg fly over his head as he sprang into her like a lineman breaking the other team's line.  His shoulder landed in her stomach, and he wrapped his arms around her in the same motion. 

His impact sent her off balance, and added to his next move.  He held onto her as he threw himself backwards, dragging her with him.  It would have made an impressive throw if he had the impetus to do it, but the awkwardness of the move made him turn it into a wrestling slam against the mat, which would have worked had Buffy not slapped her hands against the mat and jerked her legs from his grasp.  He fell to the mat as she pulled her legs over her head in a handstand.  Before he could move, she back flipped and landed over Marco's chest, straddling him, his neck between her knees. 

Marco blinked, a little stunned.  "Wow."

"That's what most people think," Willow said. 

"Right before they go _ahhh_," Xander added, the sound a pseudo-shriek. 

Buffy smiled at Marco and patted his chest.  "That's only for baddies. Don't worry about it."  She slid off of him and into a standing position with the grace of a cat. 

"I never worry," he replied as he took her offered hand.  

She lifted him to his feet without any effort on Marco's part.  "That's good.  No worries make for no gray hairs, and that happens a lot around here."

He slid his charming face over his eyes and lips like a mask, because it was part of him, and sincerely felt. "Assuming I live so long, of course."

Spike recoiled. He still didn't like the blond upstart from New York. If it weren't for the chip in his head, he could and would have very happily torn Marco apart long ago. "Bloody hell!" he muttered. "You're here t' see _him_?"

She nodded as Anya called Marco's name. 

The college student, all nineteen years of him, strolled out of the back room set up as a small gym. He was a full head taller than the woman, also blond and blue-eyed. He looked over the woman critically, his face carefully neutral. "Okay, who are you and what have you done with my long-haired, overweight sister?"

She scowled in return, folding her arms across her chest. "Well, I could ask you who _you_ are and what did _you_ do with my manic-neurotic brother?"

They stared at each other for a moment as the vampire and ex-vengeance demon watched, wondering what was going on. Marco's face softened into a little smile and he strode over to the woman. "Hi, Cassie."

The joke over, the woman allowed her smile to break free, too. "Hey, Marco." 

They drew together in what could only be called a sibling-type hug. Spike noticed Marco's arms tighten and heard her gasping slightly. "Marco…oxygen…need it."

Marco grinned and released her. He then turned to the others. "I'd like you to meet Cassandra Cattalano, my sister.  Cassie, I'd like you to meet the…" he glanced at Spike with a furrowed brow of memory recall.  "What was that term you used?  Oh yes, the Scooby Gang," he said, emphasizing the capital letters.  "I've been adopted, you see."

"By a gang of two?"

"The rest are right here," said a blonde coming out of the back room, wearing a t-shirt and sweat pants.  She was drenched in sweat, beads dripping off of her hair, which was pulled back to a tightly wrapped ponytail on the upper back of her head.She was followed close behind by Willow, Tara, the blond fellow witch that was her girlfriend, and their dark-haired, Xander-shaped friend.****

Cassie looked at the sweaty Buffy, then Marco, and he caught her eye.  "The first dirty thought that comes out of your head _will_ be your last."

She cocked her eyebrows, all innocence. "Did I say anything? Just be the gentleman you claim to be and introduce us."

Marco pointed to each gang member. "You've met Anya and Spike. That's Xander Harris, Willow Rosenburg, and Tara Maclay." He paused dramatically, gesturing to the sweat-soaked blonde. "And Buffy Summers."

Cassie paused, starting at the name, flashing back briefly to the scene Allen Francis Doyle had made on the roof of their apartment building over three months before. "The Vampire Slayer?"

_No, the Queen of the Damned…Of course the Vampire Slayer!_ Marco thought.

The blonde nodded, smiling, and strode forward with a welcoming hand. "Nice to meet someone who's actually related to the hemorrhoid, and pleasantly surprised that you don't seem the same."

Cassie shook herself out of her reverie, and smiled, taking the offered hand. "You're calling him that already." She cast another glance at her younger brother. "You make friends everywhere, don't you?"

Marco shrugged. "It's a gift."

"Sorry if I seemed a bit shook," Cassie said, "but I was under the impression that you were… well…"

"You can say it," Buffy said kindly. "I was dead."

"Nobody's perfect," Marco said. "I should know, I'm the poster boy for imperfection…Then again, I'm a guy, so that's redundant."

Buffy and Cassie turned to him.  "Shut up, Marco," they said as one. They looked at each other.

Buffy grinned. "I like you already."

"Same here." Cassie returned the grin.

"So, what brings you to Sunnydale?" Willow asked.  

Cassie thrust her finger at Marco. "Him."

Spike took out a cigarette.  "Sure as hell wasn't for the company."

Marco held up a hand to his temple, as though rubbing away a headache, and he glared at Spike, shielding his eyes from Cassie.  His sister didn't have the first clue as to what he was capable of, and all of that reflected in the glare he gave Spike.  The vampire, to his credit, didn't seem to give a damn, even though he would be slightly scared of Marco even without the chip.  The glare was full of meaning Spike easily translated—he'd seen it reflected in Angelus' eyes enough times. He wanted to call it predatory, but Marco never acted like a predator.  He never seemed to go looking for fights, although he enjoyed it once he was in one.  

"Spike," Buffy said, "I was dead for a while, I'm still cranky.  Don't get on my bad side."

The vampire looked genuinely shocked.  "What did I say?"

"Spike," Marco said, "even _I_ respect people and things that can kill me."

Cassie sighed.  "Marco, what have you been up to _now_?"

"Practicing with Ms. Summers here," he replied.  

"And kicking some demonic ass," Xander put in, pride coloring his voice. He remembered how Marco had handled the rage demon nicknamed Bob only the month before.

Cassie sighed yet again, her eyes smiling though her lips weren't. "Here or home, you always seem to attract the bad things in life."

Marco just smiled his omnipresent smile and Cassie wondered how active he was in "kicking demonic ass."

"I truly haven't been up to much," he lied.  The last time Cassie had seen him fight anything, it had been a three-hundred-year-old master vampire, and he didn't kill that one, though not for lack of trying.  The number of vampires he'd killed since then and the—at least—one-thousand-year-old creature he'd wiped out was a closely guarded secret from his sister.  

"Really?" Buffy said, looking at him strangely.  She glanced to Cassie and back, wondering why he would hide his successes from his own sister.  It was something to check later.

"I hope he hasn't made too much of a pain out of himself," Cassie said, her smile in place again. She herself knew Marco was, with certain people, the most inoffensive person on Earth. 

"Oh, no," Willow piped up.  "He's been _really _helpful.  Especially when he got the liquid—" 

"—mercury for the chemistry lab," he cut in.  "I acted as knee breaker with the supplier."

Marco looked at Willow, and the redheaded witch cast a slightly timid gaze at him that Buffy hadn't seen on her for years.  Willow had developed a backbone with a diamond-hard firmness to it, yet she seemed slightly worried about Marco.  Worried?  Was that the word?  Intimidated, even?  Can't be.  Marco was just human.  And if he really meant her harm, she'd simply drop him somewhere in the middle of Tokyo, or wherever she thought of.  But still, there was something between them she'd missed.  

"Let's get you settled somewhere," Marco said.  "It's late."

While Cassie had gained (and early on earned) her reputation for being oblivious, she only carried the façade for so long before one of her observations prompted her to act. So far, those actions only carried to her friends, not her family, and especially not her brother. Like Buffy, she'd seen the look exchanged between Marco and Willow. It gave her something to think about, and something to ask her brother later (or his new friends if he refused to answer).

She took Marco's words and nodded. "Yeah, I didn't even get a place to stay just yet. Let's go."

She turned, and Marco's hand locked down on her shoulder like a construction claw grabbing a piece of iron.  "Before we do, let me make the last introduction."

Cassie flinched, but tried not to complain.  Her brother never overreacted, so something had to be wrong.  He patted her shoulder and said, "Stay.  Ms. Summers, may I talk with you a moment?"

The Slayer nodded with authority, as though she were a general granting an audience to a captain.  The two of them walked back into the training room.  Marco towered over her and met her eyes, but didn't look down on her.  He always considered most women his equals, if not his betters.  She was definitely a better.

"What's the what?"

He frowned in thought for a moment, until he said, "I take it that's the vernacular for 'What's up'?"

"Yeah… Like, what planet do _you_ come from?"

"New York," he said with a straight face.  "And I know I'm on planet California at the moment, and I should play by local customs, but no one deigned to give me any information on the plane here.  Do you think it would do irreparable harm to Spike's ego if I informed my sister that he's almost as bad as an IRS agent?"

Buffy wrinkled her nose.  "IRS?"

Marco shrugged.  "Different degree of bloodsucker."

She nodded.  "Gotcha…. Spike's harmless.  He can't do anything, so no sweat.  I wouldn't tell her about Willow and Tara, or Anya, even."

Marco's eyes went cold and as dark as arctic skies.  "Fine.  But if she gets hurt because of him, I'll ram a piece of wood into his fourth vertebra, paralyze him, then cauterize the wound with holy water so he'd be a paraplegic vampire permanently and then bury him undead in a casket somewhere Willow would never be able to find him."  

His eyes flickered back to their gentle blue state, and he blinked.  "I apologize for the melodramatics, but the sentiment stands."

Suddenly serious, she asked, "Why tell me?" 

"Because you're the boss, and you don't need dissention among the ranks when you don't expect it.  I don't know if I'm good enough to be around you, or strong enough or quick enough.  I don't even know if you want to be bothered with me.  Only thing I know is that I am reliable.  You'll know where I stand every minute, and the general stance is simple: I kill the first thing that touches you, or anyone else in that room."

"Even Spike?" she asked neutrally.

"As long as he's on our side."

"If he's not?"

"Then I kill him."

They locked eyes for a moment and Marco could see her think.  "You won't tell your sister about Spike?"

"No."

"…'Kay.  You're in."

Marco got Cassie to a motel without incident. 

"So, I'll go let you sleep." He handed her a slip of paper. "That's a direct line to my dorm room if you need me." 

He turned to go out the door when he felt her hand on his arm. He met her eyes, full of curiosity and a slight bit of worry. "Marco, what's going on?"

He sighed. "Well, Willow did a spell to—"

"I'm not talking about that, but I'll ask later. I'm talking about why you're being so evasive about your actual demon hunting."

"I don't know what you're talking about."

A small smile twitched across her lips. "Marco, you once told me I was piss-poor at lying," she reminded him. "You're just as poor at acting dumb. So don't try, because I know better. Please tell me?"

"I'm not acting.  I'm male, therefore—"

"Don't try it."

"Try what?"

"Acting cute."

"Me? Cute?  Never!"

"Marco—"

"Cassie, what could I hide?"

"I don't know, did you kill someone?"

Marco's face didn't change.  He had gotten good at that.  "Only vampires.  Aside from that? Who's there to kill around here?  I haven't seen a mugger since I arrived.  I think the vampires ate them all."

"I saw the way Willow looked at you, she was scared."

He cocked an eyebrow and turned his amused smile upwards a little.  "Really?  You could tell that from someone you just met from a five-second glance.  Yeah, right, and I'm a two thousand year old master vampire.  Good night, Cassie."

She dragged him back forcefully by his shirt. "No! No 'Good night, Cassie'!" She was shocked at how loud she'd almost screamed. 

Marco merely looked down at her hand on his shirt as though it were some inconvenience. He grabbed her hand, digging his thumb into the fleshy part between thumb and index finger, and moved his hand like a lever, pulling her off him.  

She hid her surprise, and her pain. She began again softly. "Marco, I know what I saw. I've actually worked very hard at sharpening my observations while you've been gone. And I have _observed_ that Willow's not acting like herself around you, judging from the surprised look on Buffy's face." She drew herself to her full height (which didn't help considering how much taller Marco was) and locked eyes with him, daring him to look away. "I know you're not telling me everything. I'm supposed to be your sister, and I'm asking you to talk to me."

Their eyes held, neither of them giving ground. "Cassie, you are my sister.  You're right, I don't tell you everything, and I never will.  There are things that are private.  This is one.  Also realize I don't tell you some things for very good reasons.  Good night.  Don't let the vampires bite."

With that, Marco left. 

She opened her suitcase, pulled out a nightshirt, and bounced a little on the spacious bed. One problem: she wasn't tired. Her mind was too full of concerns and questions to which she had no answers. She _hated_ when she didn't have answers. She also hated when her brother was hiding something. 

Cassie blew out some of her frustrations. There was only one thing to help clear her head: a walk, outside, in the night air.

Marco settled into his bed, in t-shirt and underwear, tossing the sheets over his form, and he gently closed his eyes, ready for sleep.  

The knock came so suddenly a wooden knife was in his hand before the sound waves had finished vibrating.  "Who is it?"

"Me," Buffy said. 

Marco cocked an eyebrow and absentmindedly tossed the blanket aside, standing.  "Twist the knob gently right, left, right again, and tap on the door twice."

On the other side of the door, Buffy wrinkled her brow and did as he instructed.  The door popped open and she walked in on him.  He stood in the center of the room in a t-shirt and boxers the way any other guy might stand in a full tuxedo, like a dancer with his hands at his side.  A knife lay on the bed, completely ignored.  

"I hope I'm not interrupting anything."

He smiled that smile she found so irritating.  "Not in the least.  I was about to sleep, but I require so very little nowadays, your resident demons have made sure of that.  Will you sit?"

"Um, thanks," she said, still a little uncertain what planet he was from.  "Where?"

"Desk, chair, or bed, makes no difference."

"Chair, I think."

Marco reached over and pulled a chair from the desk and turned it toward the bed.  He held it for her as she sat down, and walked around to the bed, still standing.  "Now, what may I help you with?"

"…Are you going to sit?"

He nodded casually.  He sat and deftly crossed one leg over another.  She wondered how he managed not to flash her.

"Now, I haven't been back long," Buffy said, "but I've heard plenty of good things about you…in terms of fighting, that is.  Socially, you seem…"

"Obnoxious and disliked?" he suggested.

Buffy smiled slightly. "To put it mildly… Everyone but Willow and Dawn seems to think that you're a pain, a nuisance, and even Willow's a little shaky on that now.  Every time Willow mentions you in the past, she gets all, well, Willow-y.  But I've barely even seen you since I came back, and after that time, she stops talking.  Why?"

"Bringing you back was wrong," he answered plainly.  "I told Willow as such, but she refuses to believe me.  I'm trying to separate her actions from herself, but I haven't gotten there yet."

Buffy sat there in shock for a moment.  "You think… bringing me back…was wrong," she echoed flatly.  

He waved a hand through the air.  "It's not that I don't like you or Willow, quite the contrary, but we both know what happened to you, and she doesn't want to believe."

The words reopened the wound in Buffy's heart.  The hollowness gaped inside her like a vacuum calling out for the happiness she had known.  

"What happened?" she asked in shock.  "I was in… Hell.  I was—tortured." The effort to lie was almost unbearable.  

"That's what you told them, but I know better, and so do you," Marco said.  "I can't imagine the strain of past weeks on you.  I think—"

Buffy stood and moved toward the door.  "I have to go."

Marco was at the door ahead of her, blocking the way.  "You don't have to worry about me telling Willow.  I've already told her, and she wasn't having any of it. We had a fight about it, right here, about a day or two after you came back.  I can't even begin to imagine what you're feeling, but—"

Buffy reached past him for the door.  "I need to go."

Marco's hand shot out and grabbed her wrist.  "Let me finish, please."

She looked up at him, eyes filled with pain.  "Get out of my way," she insisted weakly, bordering on tears.  She needed away from him, _now_.

"You need someone to talk to, confide in," he replied, loosely gripping her. "If not me, then talk with Spike, if need be.  I don't mean just now, I mean anytime you need to.  If you can stand talking with Spike that much, then please feel free.  If not, then I offer myself to your service."

She blinked, and tears rolled down her eyes.  He let go of her wrist and slid the hand under her arm and around her torso, drawing her gently to him.  She didn't resist.  There were plenty of things that she wouldn't have resisted, but he merely held her.  

After all, there were rules about such things.  

Buffy held onto this stranger for reasons unknown.  His scent was so familiar, and oddly comforting.  She knew she had met him before today, yet she had never seen him before.  Right?  

Buffy regained her composure and stepped back from Marco.  He offered no resistance and let her go.  "I'm sorry, I…I don't do this on a first-day basis.  I usually have to know someone for a few weeks before I go all wet faced in front of them."

Marco nodded, his smile returning.  "Understood.  I'm sorry I can't help you more, I haven't been resurrected lately—" He stopped at a thought and his smile grew.  "Although I know someone who has been.  If you'd like to meet him, I'm sure you can swap stories."

She closed her eyes and held them so for a moment.  "No, I don't think so."

He stepped in front of her and cupped her chin in his hand, making her opening eyes meet his. "Come on, it may be fun. You can compare notes, chat a bit.  Granted, he was totally vaporized, but I don't hold that against him.  He's also Irish, but I hope you don't hold that against him, either."

She smiled, though she didn't know why.  He wasn't that funny.  Maybe she needed to laugh as much as she had to cry.  Needing people, or things, never was her strong suit.  Maybe now things would be different.  It's not as though they weren't already.__

"Did I show you some of my wood working?" Marco asked.  Without waiting for a reply, he strode over to his headboard and withdrew a foot-long wooden blade.  He flipped it onto his middle finger to show that it was perfectly balanced in the center.

"Throwing knife," he said.  "I don't like up close and personal with something ten times stronger than I am if I don't have to."

"Can you throw well?"

Marco scooped up three knives from the nightstand (they had looked like letter openers) and tossed them at the bulletin board in a triangle, and ended by smoothly taking the foot long knife in hand and throwing it into the middle.

He stood dancer-straight, and shrugged. "You could kinda say that."

She was on the run, silently thanking her stars she had taken up running to get in shape. She needed it to escape the vampire chasing her.

And I wanted to take a walk through the crisp night air, she cursed at herself. Why didn't anyone tell me this was a favorite hunting ground for vamps?

Cassie cried out as her ankle betrayed her yet again, twisting as her foot caught in a hole someone had carelessly left hidden in the long grass of the park. She landed hard on her belly and rolled onto her back, just as the vampire caught up and tried to descend on her. She used her good foot to kick at him, to keep him away from her, but he knocked it to the side, and pinned her body with his as though he was about to rape her. 

"I'm gonna enjoy this," he hissed, going for her throat.

The vampire was suddenly yanked away from her. "Not as much as I am," Spike said, right before ramming wood through his heart.

Cassie turned her head away as the vamp exploded, feeling dust particles brush her face.

Spike held a slender hand down to her. "You all right?"

She took his hand, nodded. "I'm okay." She winced a little at the twinge in her ankle as she put her weight on it. "Damn, that hurts."

He smiled slightly. "C'mon, let's getcha off the battlefield. Walk y' back t' wherever y're stayin'."

"Thanks. You know, you'd think having a few months of practice would've made me better vampire bait," she groused, limping slightly. She glanced at him. "I mean, victims are _supposed_ to run, right?"

"Victims, yeah. Not little girls who kick back."

She mock-glared at him. "And who are you calling 'little'?" For a split-second, she thought he was making fun of her body.

Spike held up his hands in surrender. "I'm not sayin' you don't have a nice body, pet." 

Despite herself, she grinned. "So you _were_ looking at my body when you walked me to the shop."

He tried desperately not to leer at her, turning it into a smirk instead. "I never said I was dead, luv." _Not totally._

"And if Marco found out, you would be. But you'll have to tell me why you're called 'Spike'. Don't you have an actual name?"

Spike nodded, debating whether or not to actually tell her. "Yeah, but it's a nancy-boy name, so I just go by Spike."

Cassie sighed. "Look, I promise I'm not going to laugh or poke fun. Besides," she gave him a sincere look, "I owe you my life twice over. That kind of gratitude doesn't just fade into taunting."

He looked at her and knew she was being completely serious, and decided. "William," he said. "My name's William."

Marco yanked out a crucifix and stood, feet apart, his forward foot perpendicular to his back foot.  He held it before him a moment before lunging forward, as with a foil, and ramming the sharpened bottom point toward Buffy, stopping inches from her heart.  He felt fortunate that she didn't beat him to death with his soon-to-be-ripped-off arms.  

Buffy looked at his feet.  "Do that again."

He did.  "You look like you're fencing," she told him.

Marco went dancer-straight.  "Four years of it in high school."

He went over to his closet and opened the door.  From the bottom, he withdrew a polished wooden box.  He turned to her on the ball of his foot and presented it to her.  Inside was a finely polished cavalry saber.  

Her eyes widened.  "Wow.  Nice toy.  Where'd you get it?"

Marco smiled.  "Turn around a minute."

Before she could, he had his shirt off, and Buffy wondered if Marco had even 1% fat on his body, and then, how he looked so ordinary.  He seemed to have an armor of muscle beneath the skin, but she hadn't even guessed he could have anything under his shirt.  

He was in mid-reach for an item in the closet when he stopped and said, "Turn around."

"Why? Afraid I'll see something I haven't before?"

"A surprise."

Cassie smiled. "I like it. Doesn't fit with what I see, but I like it." She put on a puzzled frown. "But why 'Spike'? I mean, it fits with the clothes, but so does 'Billy'. I don't know, like Billy Bob Brown, meanest bloke in the whole darn town…" She paused as she reconsidered. "No, wait, that was something else…."

Spike grinned again. "Thought y' meant Billy Idol. But my other nickname's 'William the Bloody'. Didn't jive with the clothes either."

"'William the Bloody'? Why in God's name did you pick _that_ out?"

"I didn't," he snarled, making her jump at its ferocity. He softened his voice again as the pain from his past as a human started to show. "I was called that by others…'cause m' poetry was so bloody awful."

She jumped in front of him and began to awkwardly walk backward so they were facing each other. "You wrote poetry?" At his nod, she smiled. "I'd like to read some."

He shook his head, his jaw clenching. "Burned most of it. Haven't written in a long time."

Cassie saw the hurt in his voice, in his eyes, and was desperately curious about what had happened to him to keep him from writing. But, she liked to think of herself as compassionate, so she let it go. "If you could reconstruct some of your stuff, I'd like to read it."

Spike felt his lips twitch in a small smile. "I'd like that. Poetry buff?"

She shrugged. "Of a sort. I read _The_ _Tempest_ for the first time with Marco and my dad. Got me into Shakespeare at the very least." She smiled again, shaking her head. "For a while, it made me wish I was named Miranda." 

Spike laughed at last. "Y' wanted t' be a princess exiled with her da' on a deserted island? Where's the fun in that?"

"I don't know, having a dad who could call storms seemed pretty cool to me."

"You can turn around."

Buffy sighed, turned, and opened her eyes. Marco had been replaced by a soldier in a navy blue military uniform with a white cap atop his head and the cavalry saber at his side.  

Marco spread his arms. "What do you think?"

Buffy bit her lip for a moment, wondering what to think. "Not bad."

"Xavier High School, class of '99. ROTC. Comes with the uniform and saber. They taught me how to fight, shoot, and use this." He patted the hilt of the sword.  

"Oh," she said flatly. "Cool."

He scanned her and sighed. "I'm still not sure how they could have considered you were being tortured. You seem half-dead." _And that's why whatever dark demon Willow evoked to drag her back was proud to do it: the suffering Buffy's going through is more than any of them could have suffered combined._

He glanced at his watch. "Look, it's rather late, would you like me to see you home?"

"No. I can make it there myself."

He nodded, and reached for the white military cap on his skull.  

"Why is Willow scared of you?"

The hat hovered halfway off his head. "Why does everyone think that? First Cassie, now you."

"But I know Willow. She's terrified of you. She's a powerful witch who could probably destroy half of Sunnydale, and she's scared of you. Why? And why don't you want your sister to know about that demon you killed?"

"Because odds are I could cut Willow's head off and not feel a thing," he stated. "I only really killed one human being, a mugger who pulled a gun on me. We had vampire troubles in Brooklyn, and when this moron came point blank and pulled a gun on me and a friend, I treated it automatically like a vampire problem, and ran him through. As I told Willow, I kind of enjoyed it. Cassie doesn't know about it, and she won't find out, if I have anything to say about it."

Marco walked up to Buffy and stopped a foot away from her. He met her eyes and let his own go dead of life and emotion. "This is what I don't want her to see."

"Mind if I ask you something?"

Spike looked at her a moment. "I guess so. What?"

"Did something happen to Marco since he came here? And what was Willow _really_ going to say before he interrupted her?"

He stopped and looked at her. "He didn't tell you?"

"He hasn't told me _anything_!" she exploded. She sighed and ran nervous fingers through her hair, remembering painfully Marco's fingers prying her hand away. "I know he hasn't told me everything since we were younger. But right now, he's going out of his way to hide something from me, and it is so—_damned—frustrating_!" She was dangerously on the verge of screaming again. 

Spike gently pulled a hand from her hair. "Easy, luv. If he won't, I will. If you're up to it."

Cassie nodded. "Damn straight I'm up to it. Please tell me."

"Well, it started with the World Trade Center thing." He paused. "Your brother, he, um, didn't take it well."

"Translation: he decided to vent on the local undead," Cassie remarked. She smiled at his shocked expression. "Marco may project the image of cool, calm, and mature, but he can be just as volatile as the next guy if he lets himself. It seems natural enough."

He looked at her a moment. "What about you, pet? How'd you take it?"

She shrugged, her smile lessening. "Kinda numb for a while, until the clinic started flooding with overflow from the major hospitals. Then I didn't have time to be numb, or angry. I put all my energy into helping my father, the patients, tracking down family. Not fun." She shook her head, clearing her throat to stave off the tears, the memories of people who'd lost someone in the attack. "Anyway, please keep going. Marco started hunting. Then?"

"I found him just before a demon could tear him t' pieces. Turns out the demon followed 'long patterns of rage. While the rest of the country was numb or afraid, Marco lit up like a beacon." Spike may have been a demon himself, but the waste of life at the Twin Towers had appalled even him. "This wanker had a long history of turnin' the world on its head. And he actually flew one of the planes that did a kamikaze in your town. 

"Marco used himself as bait the night he was taken down. We shot him up with metal arrows and electricity, courtesy of the witches…. Willow and Tara," he elaborated off her questioning look. "Marco started lobbin' these homemade grenades at him. When the demon started fightin' back, Marco's face"—he struggled with words for a moment, trying to describe what he had seen—"it kinda switched t' neutral, like he'd gone numb. Tears were streakin' his face before he attacked the demon by himself.

"Marco dragged him all the way to the docks on a motorcycle, then froze 'im with a canister o' liquid nitrogen." He shook his head at the memory. "Just before he shattered him, Marco told him that Sunnyhell didn't belong to his kind anymore. That there was a light here what would be defended." He smirked slightly. "He thought the demon'd killed Willow, that's why he was cryin'."

By the end of the narrative, her eyes were wide with amazement. "Whoa," she breathed. "_That's_ what he meant when he said he had a job here. I had no idea what he was talking about." _And he cried,_ she thought. _He hasn't cried in… a long time. Willow must be an incredible person to provoke tears._ "And that stuff about Sunnydale being protected, he said that in front of you all?" 

He cleared his throat, searching his mind for a convenient lie to explain himself. "I've got—very sharp hearin'."

She smiled. "Sharp for a human—or for a vampire?"

He stopped again. "You—you _know_ I'm a vampire?"

She couldn't help but laugh at the expression on his face. "Spike, you're talking to a girl who shook hands with the former Scourge of Europe. I think I know what a vampire feels like."

"It could be low blood pressure, luv," he tried bluffing his way out. He knew that humans with low BP had hands cool to the touch.

Cassie smiled at the attempted ploy. "Sorry, but my dad has low blood pressure, and even then I can feel a pulse in his fingertips. I couldn't feel anything in yours."

Spike sighed again, having been caught out. "Well, now that y' know 'bout your brother, what are y' gonna do about it?" he asked warily.

She looked at him, her smile dropping. "For the time being, nothing." That earned her a surprised look, at which she shook her head. "He has a good reason for almost everything he does, and he never goes into a situation without being fully prepared for it. He'll tell me eventually, hopefully with an incredibly good reason." They finally arrived at her motel and she smiled again. "Thank you, for tonight and walking me back."

He returned the smile. "Sure thing, pet. See ya about."

"When did you go all predatory?" Buffy asked.

Marco's eyes softened, melting into a kind of gentle kindness Buffy expected to be alien to his face, though it fit well with the rest of the features.  

_How that happened, I'll never know. _

"Not predatory," he replied. "I enjoyed an instance of self-defense. I'm still not sure whether or not I enjoyed the kill itself, or the simple knowledge that I took out a bad guy. Serial killers take people out for fun. I hope I just enjoyed doing what I had to. Until the time when I kill something a little more human—Bob doesn't count—I doubt I'll really be sure."

"And you're not worried?"

"I never worry."

"Ah…and how do you manage to stand that uniform?  You wear it like you wore just your underwear, completely comfortable."

Marco shrugged.  "As for my underwear, flesh is flesh, and rather irrelevant.  The uniform itself…I've always felt more comfortable in decent clothes than in blue jeans and a tee.  You can look fine in casual wear, mainly because you'd look fine in…just about anything."

She rolled her eyes.  "Yeah, I hear that from most guys."

"Hmm…pity, I always considered myself to be slightly more attuned to reality than most men.  But I suppose that beauty such as yours must serve to smack them in the face with the force of a hammer blow."

She looked at him for a moment and said, "You know, you don't talk like anyone I know…except maybe Giles, and he's not really your style."

"Yes, I know. Refreshing, isn't it?"

After Buffy left, Marco undressed again. He thought a moment about a friend from a few months ago, a man his sister had brought home after being dumped into a back alley in Brooklyn.  His hand hesitated over the phone, then he thought "to heck with it" and made a call to Los Angeles. 

After five rings, he was about to hang up when someone on the other end of the line fumbled up the receiver. A winded brogue sounded in his ear. "Angel Investigations, we help the hope—"

"Skip the song and dance, Doyle. It's Marco. And you _are_ hopeless."

In the abandoned Hyperion Hotel in Los Angeles, Allen Francis Doyle grinned at the familiar voice. "Marc! Good t' hear from y'. How's Cassie?"

"She's good. She's here, in fact. In Sunnydale."  

"Sunnydale!  Why'd you allow her t'—"

"Doyle, the last time I was able to _make_ her do anything was when a master vampire was about to eat her. And making her defend herself isn't exactly a choice."

"True.  And how've y' been enjoyin' the place?"

"Nearly being eaten on a regular basis isn't exactly my cup of tea, but it's exercise."

"'Cup o' tea'?" he asked in amusement. "Y' sound like Wesley."

"I didn't call to be insulted by a bad Barry Fitzgerald impersonator."

"Who?"

Marco rolled his eyes.  _Doesn't anyone watch _The Quiet Man_ anymore?_  "Never mind, you cracked Mick.  Have the vampires eaten anyone interesting over there yet?"

"Nah, not really. There've been some real nasties t' contend with, but no real harm.  What can I do for you this early in the morning?"

"What was it like being dead?"

He was answered with a silence more pronounced than any flat line.

"Hello?"

"Yeah, I heard y', Marc.  Why're y' askin'?"

"Because I have a Slayer who's come back from the dead.  If you know anyone else who's done that, please let me know and I'll talk with them.  If you don't remember being dead, let me know and I'll give up."

"Well, I don't remember, but hold on a sec, okay?"

Before Marco could say no, he was greeted with the sound of a mellow, slightly confused voice.  "Hello?"

"Hi.  I'm Marco Cattalano, I hope Doyle's told you about me?"

A pause.  "Oh, yeah, the slightly crazy one from New York. Tell me, exactly what _were_ you thinking when you went up against Mikhail?"

"Who?"

"The master vampire you fought in Brooklyn."

"Oh, something along the lines of 'Let's play.' "

"Ah…. huh."  He was suddenly glad Marco hadn't been turned.  Making someone with that mentality a vampire would've been a true nightmare…again.

"You knew the guy?" Marco asked.

"Huh? Yeah, back sometime in the 1880s. He was always a stiff, and very territorial. He had a thing for big nests. He'd establish one, secure the terrain, and move out again. You don't know how lucky you are. He'd killed more Slayers than anyone I knew. Four, at least."

"Who trained him, do you know?" Marco asked, suddenly curious.

"Someone from Ulster, I think.  A real old vampire.  She'd probably be, sheesh, eight hundred by now."

"Hmmm."

"So, why did Doyle put me on the phone?"

"Depends, who are you, first of all?"

"Angel."

"Ah.  How well do you remember dying?"

After a moment of undead silence, "Which time?"

"Both."

"The first time I don't remember.  The second…why do you want to know?"

"Because I have a half-dead Slayer here that…. no, check that, she's _not_ dead, and that's the problem. She's about as emotionally numb as a rock. What happened when you came back the second time?"

"I'd rather not discuss it.  This conversation is over."

"No, you arrogant snot! The love of your unlife is up here with no sensations, and I'm surprised she's holding up as well as she is! So if you have any post-resurrection tips that you can share, I bloody well need to know!"

"It won't work for me, _damnit_!" he bellowed back. "She sent me to _Hell_ that time, and…." The voice trailed off as Angel realized he'd just said too much.

Marco blinked.  "So you know, too? She told you?"

"Yes.  When we met."

"So between the two of you, we wind up with two-thirds of Dante's _Commedia_… Doesn't anyone remember purgatory?" He sighed. "Perfect. Sorry to bother you, then."

"Why do you want to know? You're not—"

"Dating her? He…. ck no! Wouldn't dream of it in her current state. Or even in the state next door, for that matter. I think I'm the only other person who knows about where she spent those months, so I'm obliged to help her get through however long she has to live."

"That could be a while…. Thinking of marrying her? She could live that long."

"I may be smarter than your average bear, but I don't think _that_ far ahead. Besides, I could always be eaten tomorrow. You know what the neighborhood's like."

"Yeah, I do."

"All right, thanks for your time."

"No problem."

Eduardo ran quickly through the streets of Sunnydale, cursing his slowness.  Ever since his one-time trial of the local vampire cult chapter, he never stayed out after dark, where he became lunch.  He carried crosses, stakes, holy water, just so he'd never be caught unawares.

Eduardo ran into a tall redhead and bounced off of her chest, onto the ground.  Barely looking up, her said, "Excuse me.  Sorry."

She reached a hand to pick him up.  When he reached for it, she lunged past his arm and grabbed the front of his shirt.  The redhead lifted him off the ground, her vampiric eyes alit in the darkness.  He reflexively grabbed a stake and jammed it into the vampire's heart.

She looked down and up again, smiling.  Her face was the most deformed of any vampire he'd ever seen.  And he had seen more than enough to suit his entire life.  Without blinking, the vampire grabbed the stake and slowly pulled it out of her heart.

She tossed it away, and then fed like a vicious animal.

The slayer is next! 


	3. What do you do with a Reborn Slayer?

Chapter 2: What do you do with a Reborn Slayer? 

Cassie walked into the Magic Box the next day, her hair still a little damp despite having been in the sun for an hour. Anya's head shot up from the till at the ringing of the bell. "Oh, hello," she greeted, slightly disappointed that it wasn't a money-bearing customer. 

Cassie smiled at this strange girl whom Xander seemed to adore, and the feeling mutual. "Hi, Anya. I thought I'd look around a bit, see if there's anything I like I can afford. You mind?"

The blonde grinned, beaming, her speech suddenly bouncy. "No, not at all. If there's something I help you with, let me know."

Cassie nodded. "I will, thanks."

"Anya," a British accent called from the back, "have you seen the powdered toadstool?"

"It's right behind the wolfsbane," Anya called back.

An exclamation of triumph later, the owner of the accent came out with several dozen small boxes of said powdered toadstool. "Please, Anya."

The retail queen nodded and moved to shelve the boxes. Cassie looked to the Englishman who had walked in. His brown hair was swept to one side, and his hazel eyes clear behind a pair of wire-rim glasses. In a strange fashion choice, he'd decided to wear a pair of jeans with an oxford shirt and a tweed suit-jacket. 

He then turned to see her eyes on him. "Ah, hello. May I help you?"

Cassie felt herself blush at the fact he'd caught her looking. "Not really. I didn't know what else to do until Marco gets out of classes, so I walked here."

He took a closer, longer look at her and smiled. "You're his sister, aren't you?"

She grinned. "Ah, the Cattalano looks strike again. Yes, he's been mistaken for everything from my twin brother to my older brother." She put out her hand. "And my name's Cassandra. My friends call me Cassie."

He took the hand. "Rupert Giles. Pleasure to meet you."

"Mutual." 

His nose wrinkled, as if he had caught wind of something. "That's an interesting scent," he commented. "What do you call it?"

Cassie felt herself blush again. "Eau de motel pool," she replied, almost apologetic. "I got in a swim before I walked here. This is actually a nice town when the nasties are in for the day." 

"Indeed. Well, feel free to look, if you wish."

"Thank you." 

Cassie continued to watch Giles and Anya for a few hours. Finally, she came over to Giles during a break in commerce. "Mr. Giles, is there anything I can do to help out here? As much I enjoy watching the two of you work, I'm starting to feel a little useless." She raised her eyebrows. "Please? Just until Marco comes by?"****

Giles and Anya exchanged a look. She did seem genuinely interested in helping, where her brother could care less. "Well, what can you do, exactly?"

"I'm fairly Web and 'Net literate, I can do a bit of research for you in terms of getting supplies, and I learn fast." She smiled slightly. "I worked briefly in retail, and I'm taking a break from being a Jackie-of-all-trades at a free clinic back home."

Another exchanged look later, Giles put her to work reorganizing the books for sale on the shelves. She asked intelligent questions about the store and some of the items on sale, noting which books and items were too dangerous to sell alone or in combination. When she asked about Spike, she'd listened to quite a few stories.

"Cassie," Giles began, "do you have any interest in magic at all?"

She smiled. "I know a little _about_ magic, thanks to a friend of mine. But practicing it? No, not really. I think I'd be a little too dependent on something that could make my life easier." She shook her head. "Not a good thing for me." 

"How do you mean?" he asked, genuinely curious.

"Well, if I know magic, I'd be tempted to use it for the more mundane things, like zapping away a few extra pounds or trying to glean knowledge without actually working for it." She shrugged again. "I have a tendency to be lazy if I don't kick my own motivation in the butt."****

A set of arms wrapped around her from behind and lifted her into the air. "Pop quiz, how do you fight back against this?"

"I slam my heel back into your knee and cripple you."

Marco dropped her on her feet. "Not quite, but good enough." He patted her on the shoulder. "Buffy wanted to make the rest of my body turn black and blue for a little while. If you want, after you're done playing with these two, I'd be happy to do the same for you."

The two of them walked into the back room and Giles looked behind them. "Charming fellow, isn't he? Surprised he wasn't strangled at birth."

"He probably would have set too many booby traps," Cassie replied.

Giles looked at her. "Really?"

"I remember he had so many toys spread around the room it was a death trap. I used to think it was just a mess, but now I'm not so sure." She smiled.

Marco slipped his t-shirt over his head and slipped into a combat stance.  With his bare chest, he almost started to remind Buffy of Riley Finn… less shoulder width, perhaps, but the same type of muscle build, and an almost professional fighting stance. Add the military uniform…

Marco observed Buffy looking at him, and returned the favor, concentrating on her relaxed, noncombative stance: one leg straight, the forward leg bent at the knee as though she were leaning against the wall, and her arms fully relaxed.  

"Ready?" he asked.

She snapped into a stance to mirror his own.  "Yeah."

"Go…Don't feel you should hold anything back—"

Within mid-blink, Buffy's right cross snapped into the air, but Marco had leaned back a split-second before the blow was launched. He grabbed the wrist, her belt, and threw her across the mat.  She landed and rolled to her feet. 

"Judo," she said. 

He nodded. 

"I can deal."

She charged and went at him with a flying kick.  He had his arm out, waiting for her foot as it left the ground.  She kicked right into it and he latched onto her ankle, spun, and tossed her to the floor, immediately stepping back.  She was on her hands and knees, and glared at him, anger sparking in her eyes.  

Marco smiled.  _We have signs of emotion, captain._

Buffy went from her knees to a burst of speed.  Marco dropped and tumbled.  She leapt over him before he cut her legs out from under her.  They rolled to their feet at the same time, Marco next to the punching bag and Buffy on the other side of the room.  She smiled and ran at him again, this time using a reverse back kick on the punching bag.  Marco's smile had turned to a grin as he dropped to the ground as the kick was launched and let the bag fly over him, then swept Buffy's leg.  She dropped to the floor and he pounced upon her, grabbing her wrists and pinning her legs with his.  

"Gotcha!" he cried.

With that, Buffy flipped him over and landed on him, pinning him to the ground.  "Try again?"

Marco frowned a moment, then licked her face.  

"Ewww!" she said as she reached up to wipe her cheek.

Marco used that free moment to deck Buffy across the face, grab her shirt, then toss her over his head with his legs.

Buffy looked up at the ceiling, and Marco's face, above her again, pinning her. One knee rested gently on her stomach, and he held both her wrists to the mat.  His other leg was across one of hers, keeping it to the floor.  

"Give up?"

"How did you do that?"

"I fence.  It's combative chess.  Like when I sparred with you the first time, I predicted your next move, and struck accordingly.  With your opening move the other day, I dodged the opening punch, then numbed the muscle so I could avoid a backhand, then step back to avoid a kick—your only move left.  Just logically guess where your opponent will move next."

Cassie had discreetly watched them spar, stifling a giggle as she saw Buffy's reaction to Marco licking her. It was almost beautiful, almost choreographed. She hadn't seen her brother fight since the night of the attack by the vampire nest the year before. Now while Buffy moved like a cat, all reflexes and grace, Marco carefully moved with precision, like a prowling lion. 

"Hey, Buffy, I thought _you_ were going to turn _him_ black and blue, not the other way around."

The Slayer looked up to see Cassie in the door, smiling. "Hold on." She quickly planted her knees in Marco's stomach and flipped him away, sending him rolling to the other side of the room. She got to her feet and whirled on Cassie with her own smile. "Your turn."

Cassie spotted and went for the quarterstaffs in their corner of the room. Taking two, she tossed one to Buffy, who caught it easily. Buffy almost immediately attacked with a flurry of strikes, most of which Cassie barely managed to parry, wincing slightly when a few tapped her lightly in the ribs. 

Marco, from his seat on the floor, watched them, concentrating mostly on his sister's moves. Her defense was good, but her attacks lacked finesse.

Cassie jumped away before Buffy's staff could connect with her ribs again. _Okay, time to take a little back._ She channeled some of her memories, remembering when it had been her, Marco, Doyle, and her neighborhood's two local gangs against an entire vampire nest. With a sudden howl, she lashed out, catching Buffy in her ribs and on her hip. The opponents parried and blocked so fast, the moves seemed to blur as Marco watched.

Cassie leapt over Buffy's sweep strike only to find the tip of the staff resting lightly on her heart. The woman from New York just whistled in appreciation. "You're good."

Buffy smiled. "Comes as part of the Slayer package."  She turned to Marco. "Bronze tonight?"

Marco shrugged.  "Sure."

Cassie glanced at them, briefly wondering what new language her brother had learned.****

Cassie had to admit, while the music at the Bronze that night was a bit loud for her, she was enjoying watching people dance and joking with her brother and their new friends. 

Then, for some inexplicable reason, Cassie looked toward a corner at the other end of the club to see a white-blond head of hair slumped all by its lonesome. She pointed him out to Willow, who had the seat next to her, and asked, "Why's Spike sitting all the way over there? I thought he was a Scooby, too."

"He is," Willow replied. "But I think he's still a little freaked that Buffy's back." She shrugged. "I don't know who was more mad, him, Giles, or Marco."

Cassie nodded. "Marco has a tendency to feel pretty strongly about something that doesn't seem right, even bringing someone back from the dead. Save my seat." She got up and walked until she was standing over him. "Hey, there."

Spike looked up from his contemplation of the beer bottle on the table. He smiled slightly at seeing Marco's big sister standing over him. "Hey, yourself. What's up?"

Cassie took the overstuffed chair beside him. "Well, I was wondering why you were sitting here all alone." She pushed away the sudden feeling of shyness and kept going. "And I was wondering if you'd like to dance with me."

He blinked at the request. He still ached whenever he saw Buffy, resurrected, alive. She treated him like a man, even after all this time, and it still hurt that she'd never love him, a monster. But now this woman, the sister of the upstart, was asking him to dance. He was at a loss for words for once in his long unlife. 

"Well, nice of y' t' ask, pet," he said at last, "but thanks, no. It's nothin' t' do with you—"

"But it _does_ have to do with Buffy."

He blinked at her again, this time in amazement. _How did she—?_

Cassie laughed as his jaw hung open. "I only _seem_ like I'm oblivious," she reminded him. "That doesn't mean that I actually am. It's in your body language, the way you look at her when you think no one's looking." She smiled softly. "The undiluted joy in your eyes, seeing her again…you get the idea."

Spike swallowed. He'd tried so hard to give Buffy space, room to readjust to being alive, and it was killing him not to be near her.

Cassie held out her hand. "Come on; one dance, no strings. You can even keep hating Marco."

He grinned. "Yeah, well, he is annoyin', but y' get used t' him."

"Now you know how I've felt most of my life." She closed her fingers around his and led him to the dance floor, just as a salsa rhythm started up. Spike hated Ricky Martin with a passion, but the man knew a real dance beat.

The Scoobies and Marco watched as Spike and Cassie danced. He twirled her around and drew her back repeatedly. She grinned and he looked like he was enjoying himself for the first time in a long while. When it looked as though she were walking away, he caught her by the waist and swung her around, his leather coat flaring around them both like a cape. They finished up the dance with her in a deep dip in his arms, their faces close enough for them to kiss. Marco tensed a moment before the vampire pulled his sister up on her feet again.

Cassie made her way back to the table, a mile-wide grin on her flushed face. "You looked like you had fun," Xander remarked, managing to keep a straight face.

She brushed a lock of hair from her eyes and readjusted her slightly askew glasses. "Yup." She flopped into her chair again. She glanced at Marco and pointed at him. "The first dirty thought out of your mind will be your last."

He blinked like a dazed soul. "Me?  Think?  When would I ever do a thing like that? Besides, my mind's too numb to think."  He raised his glass.  "In fact, I think I'll go back for more anesthetic."

Cassie blinked, too, as she watched her brother wander back to the bar. She glanced at the others. "What did I do?"

Tara smiled. "I think you dancing with Spike knocked him off balance."

"He's always off." Cassie sighed. "I know he loves me, and I love him, but there are times when I think he's being way too protective. Like _he's_ the older sibling and not me."

Marco, meanwhile, met Spike at the bar as they bought refills. "You know, if you hurt her," he said casually, "I'll have to kill you."

Spike nodded. "Yeah, kinda got that impression. But why would I wanna do somethin' like that, eh?"

Marco shot a glare at him. "Do I have to say it?  In fact, does she even _know _you're a vampire yet?"

Spike returned the glare, not bothering to say, "Yes, she does". "Look, Cassie's a nice girl. You worry about her, fine, that's your problem. But don't take it out on me just 'cause you think I might hurt her."

"Nah.  I wouldn't take it out on you until such time as when you might hurt her. Then I bury you alive and keep you there for eternity."  Marco smiled and raised his glass. "Cheers, bloodsucker."

He raised the glass to his lips and peered over the brim to see Buffy stand and wander toward the exit.  He stopped, and put the glass down.  He didn't look at Spike when he said, "Watch my drink.  If it's been spiked while I'm gone, I'll rip out your spine. Thanks."

Spike watched him walk away.  "Don't bloody mention it," he muttered.

Buffy stood outside in the dark, rubbing her arms, staring into the shadows. A coat draped itself gently around her.

"You shouldn't be out here," Marco said from behind her, holding her gently by the shoulders.

"I know. It's just so loud in there. The noise…" She hugged the coat tighter around herself and breathed deeply.  Marco's scent again; so familiar.

"Did we meet before last night?"

He furrowed his brow. "I'm almost certain we didn't. Unless you count the night you came back, but you obviously don't remember that. I helped Dawn get you home, and left you with her."

"Why?" she asked without turning around.

He shrugged, though she couldn't see it. "I didn't think you should wake up and see a stranger in the morning. You had to be brought around by your friends first, adapted into this world again before you met new people."

"Suppose so." She turned to him, peering into his face. He didn't move his hands from their post on her shoulders, and made no move toward her. "Your scent."

"What?"

"You smelled familiar. That's how I knew you. You were there from the beginning."

"Not exactly. I didn't resurrect you. I only found you a short time after Dawn."

"You were there…"

Her thoughts visibly drifted. There was something wrong—more than the usual post-resurrection depression.  

_Is she going to attack me?_

Marco's thoughts paused as he wondered what definition of the verb "attack" he meant. Once he clarified it, he still didn't find it pleasant, even though Buffy slid into his arms and held him close. His ribs slowly bent against her grip.  

"Just hold on," he whispered gently. "Don't worry, I won't break," he lied, calculating the pressure it actually took to snap the human bone.

They stayed that way until Buffy's eyes snapped open. "Down!"

They threw themselves to the ground as a light metal spear sped through the air where they had stood.  It impacted against a dumpster and went through, knocking it over.  

Buffy and Marco rolled apart, the Slayer taking a stake from Marco's jacket, the premed student slipping two from his sleeves.  They came to their feet facing the same direction, feet apart, left arm outstretched as a shield, stakes ready to kill.  Marco held his with the stakes toward the thumbs, and Buffy held hers upside down in her hand like a commando.

The next missile came right at Buffy through the shadows.  She grabbed it, spun, and used its momentum to toss it back at the thrower.

A shape darted out from the opposite side of the spear, leaping out at Buffy.  A mop of long red hair framed the face of the most hideous vampire she'd seen since the Master, and the two viper's eyes glowed green.  The creature was at least at tall as Marco, and mean.  Its first move was a swipe at Buffy's hand.  The strike made the arm go numb and the stake fly into the wall, where it shattered on impact.  Buffy ducked in time for the backhand to soar over her head and punched for its stomach, and into the vampire's waiting hand.

_Vampires don't move that fast._

The vampire threw Buffy against the far wall of the alley.  She turned ready to pursue.  Marco casually took aim and threw his blade, dropping into a roll following it.  With a blur, the vampire caught the knife and hurled it back at him with deadly accuracy, without looking.  Marco would have been dead had he not anticipated it and rolled under it (he found "Be prepared" the only good thing to come out of the Boy Scouts).  The splinters embedded themselves into the wall.

Marco jammed both stakes into her flesh, one in her thigh and one in her side.  He had two impact-firecrackers tapped to the sides, and they went off when they pressed against her flesh. They ignited the stakes and set her aflame by the time Marco had already bounced away and ran toward Buffy, forgetting the vampire for dead, even as she rolled to put the fire out.  

He dashed for Buffy and slid to his knees, stopping at her side.  He grabbed her shoulders and shook her firmly.  "Come on, tell me you've a pulse."

Her eyes snapped open, and she leapt, grabbed him, rolled over him and threw one of his stakes into the (not flaming) vampire's back.  The redheaded vampire stopped moving and dropped to the staked knee.  Both of her hands went for the stake protruding from her chest.  She slowly drew it out of her heart and dropped to her hands and knees, as though gasping for air.  

Marco and Buffy looked at each other. 

"That doesn't happen, does it?"

"No," she answered.

"This is bad, then, right?"

"You betcha."

The vampire turned, ripping both stakes from her lower body.  Marco dropped, dragging Buffy with him as the stakes flew overhead, shattering brick and mortar.  He reached for the small of his back and drew out a water pistol.  With Buffy wrapped in his left arm, he fired with his right hand, blasting the redhead's eyes.  She hissed and continued coming for them through the continuous stream of water.  

The Slayer ripped two more stakes from the inside of Marco's jacket and threw one straight for the assassin.  The vampire knocked one aside, shattering it.  The two women were only yards apart when Marco put himself between the two, rosary wrapped around one hand, and cross in the other. 

The vampire smiled and stopped two feet away, leveling her glowing green eyes on Marco.  "You think just holding those will hurt me?" she hissed in a brogue.

"No."  Marco slammed the fist with the rosary wrapped around it into her nose, a hiss accompanying it, then slapping her with the flat side of the crucifix.  "I expect _that_ to hurt."

The vampire staggered a little, shaken.  Holy relics hurt her more than anything else. "I'll be seeing you," she snapped before she ran so fast, she might as well have evaporated.

Marco ran back into the Bronze to Cassie and the others. "Everyone up!  We're going!"

His sister looked at him strangely. "What's wrong?"

"We were just attacked outside by a vampire who doesn't want to die.  Since this is a public place, she can walk in.  I don't want to get eaten.  Anyone who agrees with me will leave now."

"Let's go!" Xander said, grabbing his coat and his fiancée. 

Cassie trailed behind the group, seeing Spike still sitting at the bar, staring at his drink. She tugged his sleeve until he looked at her. "There's some kind of trouble. I think we'll need help."

Spike looked blankly at her and nodded.  "Yeah, but Marco—"

"—wants you to come and play," Marco interrupted, coming at them at a bisecting angle.  He grabbed Spike by the shoulder and dragged him out of earshot.  "I think you're a soulless monster who I wouldn't hesitate to put through unimaginable torment if you hurt anyone I loved.  Aside from that, you're a good guy.  So come along and play nice.  Besides, I'd hate for you to miss a chance to kill something."

Marco whirled and marched away, keeping the parade in order.

Cassie caught up to him, and saw the look on his face. "You okay? What did he say?" 

"Just basically reiterating that he doesn't like me and he'll do me some serious bodily harm if you get hurt while I'm around." He looked at her standing beside him, smiling slightly. "Not that you would."

She blushed slightly at the statement. _Cool it,_ she thought. _Remember, he's got it bad for Buffy. Don't act around him the way you acted around Doyle at first. _

Marco stood next to Buffy in the cool night air.  "They're coming."

Buffy showed no response as she stood with her eyes closed, as though listening for someone.  

"Buffy?"

"Yeah?"

"We're ready to go."

"Yeah."

"Hello?"

She blinked and stared at him.  "I heard you."

Voice flat, plus dead, plus distant, equals, not good. 

"How about I walk you to your safe, vampire-proof private home, and then we can meet in the morning over at the Magic Box.  Okay?"

"Sure, why not?"

The constant numbness finally started to worry him.  He put an arm around her shoulders and walked next to her down the alley.  

Spike came out just ahead of Cassie and glared at the two of them. He wanted to eat him…maybe just the simple thrill of tearing his throat out would be good enough. It wasn't like anyone would actually miss him. He had generally ignored Willow since she'd brought Buffy back, and, overall, no one liked him. Unfortunately, that almost exactly described Spike's own position within the "band of buggers." That was possibly why Spike hated Marco so much.

They were so damn alike. 

"Jealous?" Cassie asked.

The vampire turned, suddenly aware of the time he'd spent thinking. "Of what, _him_? Please. What sort of a vampire do you think I am? He has as much chance as I do of making it with the Slayer."

"Sure you're not jealous of his slight advantage?"

Spike's brows elevated. "Like what?"

"A pulse. A soul, perhaps?" _Body temp?_ Unfortunately, that thought provoked a mental image she really didn't want.

Spike cringed. "Let's get you outta here."

Marco walked his "living corpse" into her home and sat her on the couch.  Willow and Tara soon followed with Dawn right behind.  Tara looked in on them, and Marco nodded, a general signal telling her he'd handle it.  He glanced at Willow's similar look, and gave her a heartbroken gaze.  She could see he still blamed her for Buffy's state. But she'd show him.  Soon enough, he'll believe.  She _knew_ he would.

Marco only looked at her with sadness in his eyes.  He cared for Willow.  Loved her, even.  But she had played God, and no one should try to take that role.  Historically, those who tried had all ended badly.  The shame of it was he saw no way of pulling her out of it.  Tara had even acknowledged that resurrection violated natural law.  If the distinction between Wicca and Pythinessa, the "good" and "bad" witches, was based on the fact that Wicca "worshiped" nature, then even Tara saw Willow had crossed a line. But no one seemed to have cared.  

So Marco turned away from Willow, sparing her the pain in his eyes. He crouched down in front of Buffy and took her hands between his, rubbing them together.  

"I can't get warm," she whispered softly.

He nodded, then glanced toward the stairs, making sure everyone had gone up. "Psychological effects.  Your body's registering the deficiency as a coldness."

"Huh?" she responded blankly.  

"Your mind, or what I call a soul—the Greek nouns are interchangeable—feels the deficiency after being ripped out of Heaven.  Your body is registering this lack as a cold sensation."

"So I can't make it stop?"

He shrugged.  "I'm neither a theologian, nor a psychologist; I'm just a premed student with a minor in philosophy.  I do know we should get some sleep for tomorrow."

Marco slid his hands up her arms, then fluidly slipped one under her legs and scooped her up in both arms, and slowly carried her up the stairs.  

"Thanks again for walking me, Spike." Cassie unlocked the door to her motel room and went inside. She went to her case to withdraw her nightshirt and was about to change when she noticed that he'd followed her into the room. "Um, Spike? What are you still doing here?" 

"Your brother's pretty much threatened to kill me if you get hurt. And since I _like_ my skin, I'm playin' bodyguard tonight." He glanced around the room, under the bed, in the bathroom. 

"Spike, this _is_ a vampire we're dealing with," she reminded him. "She can't come in unless she's invited." 

Coming from the bathroom, he shook his head. "The need for invitation only works on real residences, pet, people's homes." He gestured around the room. "You don't live here, this's rented space."

Cassie swallowed quietly, feeling panic beginning to creep into her, remembering that Spike himself had walked in with no invitation. "So, this vampire that attacked Marco and Buffy can just come in here and I wouldn't be able to do anything." She dropped to the bed and put her head in her hands. She wanted to cry, scream, break something, do anything to keep from feeling so helpless.

She felt his cool hand on her shoulder and looked up into his deep blue eyes. "Hey, like I said, nothing bad'll happen 's long as I'm around," he reassured her.

She felt a smile flicker inside her, on her face. "Thanks, Spike." Her smile turned into a grin. "I hope you can put up with a vampire attack _and_ me talking in my sleep."

After taking directions from Buffy, Marco arrived at her room and gently deposited her in the bed.  He slipped his jacket off of her, draped it over the nearest chair, and then slipped her shoes off.  He swept her body with his eyes, checking for stakes, and once he was sure she wouldn't roll over onto one of them in the middle of the night, he pulled the covers over her, and tucked her in as though she were a child.  He kissed her gently on the forehead, and started walking slowly out of the room.

"Where are you going?" she asked.

He turned to face her. "Back to my dorm."

Buffy rolled her eyes. "A vampire just tried to kill the both of us, if you haven't noticed. She could've followed us here, and I don't want anyone going anywhere alone."

He nodded.  "Okay, I'll sleep on the couch."

"Giles is sleeping there, remember?"

Marco thought a moment.  The Watcher did say he'd be in late that night. "Fine." He grabbed the chair and dragged it toward himself. 

Buffy sighed, reached into her nightstand, and withdrew a nightshirt.  She slid the covers to her neck and changed beneath the sheets, with Marco's head facing her, but his eyes on the other side of the room. 

"Don't be ridiculous," she said as she changed.  Once finished, she swept the corner of the covers over and said, "Get in."

Marco tweaked an eyebrow. "This _is_ with the full understanding that if I touch any section of your person you'll break my hands, right?"

"I'll start there."

He smiled and nodded. "Good, glad to know where I stand." He slid his shoes off and slid into bed.

Spike sat in the only chair at the only table in the room, listening to his charge changing in the bathroom and performing her toilette. Cassie stepped out of the bathroom, her hot-pink nightshirt falling to her knees. 

She blushed as a thought belatedly occurred to her. "Um, Spike, where are you going to sleep? There's only one bed, and I'm not sure about sharing."

He smiled at her. "Relax, luv. Bodyguard duty pretty much means I'm awake for the majority. I'll be in this chair here."

"Oh," she said, trying to keep the relief from her voice. "Okay." She slipped under the covers, stretching out before turning off the lamp. Spike attuned his senses to any threats from outside.

"Spike?"

He saw Cassie had turned her head toward him. "Yeah?"

"Look, no matter what you think of my brother, just know that he's one of the few real gentlemen to come out of NYU in a long time. There's no way he'd take advantage of her."

Spike felt himself smile at her confident reassurance. "Right, okay. It's not like he's sleepin' with her or anything."

Marco was flat on his back, arms crossed over his chest like a mummy, as he felt Buffy restlessly tossing next to him.  After ten minutes, he rolled onto his side and put a hand on her shoulder, turning her to face him.  

"Mind if I try something that might help you sleep better?" he asked.

"'Kay."

"All right, now this is going to seem awkward, but trust me, I really do respect those who can kill me."

Marco carefully slid his arms around Buffy, one hand to her neck and the other to the base of her spine.  He moved his fingertips over her skin at those spots with a fine caress.  She moaned a little as he felt the small spasms along her spine as she relaxed.  He continued to stroke these nerve centers.  She wrapped her arms around him out of habit, and fell asleep in his arms.

Once Buffy finally stopped moving, Marco smiled.  

Then he tried to extricate himself from her grasp, only to find he'd been turned into a living teddy bear.

This is what I get for being nice.  From now on, only annoying for me.


	4. Of Sunnyhell and High Water

**Chapter 3: Of Sunnyhell and High Water**

The first word Marco heard that morning was "_Dormo_" meaning sleep.  He was then slammed against the wall, thrown there by invisible hands.  He opened his eyes, and half bleary with sleep, he was able to assess the situation with clarity and calm, even though he faced over two dozen black knives ready to cut him to pieces as they hovered in midair next to Willow's head.  Her eyes were almost solid black, and glaring straight at him.  He could understand how the image must have looked, given that he was in bed with Buffy.  

_But this is a bit much, isn't it?_

The knives outlined his body perfectly as they hit the wall, and two more were headed his way.  One stopped below his crotch, and the other stopped just in front of the bridge of his nose.  

"How _dare_ you take advantage of her!" Willow snapped. 

Marco blinked.  "Since you obviously cast a spell to make sure Buffy stayed asleep, why don't you take the time to look around inside my head, eh?  See what happened before you decide to do something you'll regret."

Willow lowered his eyes toward Marco, and dove into his mind.  

_Marco and Buffy, simply lay on the bed, holding one another._

_"Ah, okay," Willow thinks, standing off to one side of the room in the memory.  _

_"Feel better now?" Marco's conscious mind asks her, an image of him standing behind her._

_Willow "turns" to him and says, "Yeah.  Sorry about that."_

_"This is the last time I let you into my mind.  You _do_ know I could have kept you out, right?"_

_"Huh?"_

_Suddenly, the room dissolves into swirls of math problems, almost looking like lines of binary code.  Beethoven's music floods Marco's mind, drowning Willow in it.  Images of his life come at her like flashes of lightening, striking her, choking her, strangling her to death._

_"YOU THINK YOU CAN RIP THROUGH MY MIND LIKE SOME CHEAP ZIP DRIVE WITHOUT PAYING A PRICE FOR IT!" Marco bellows as the currents of his mind toss her to and fro.  "HOW DARE YOU, YOU VICIOUS WITCH! NOW GET OUT OF HERE BEFORE I FORGET TO BE NICE!"_

Willow fell backwards, reeling from the experience.  Marco dropped to his feet, the knives gone.  He merely glared at her as she stood and fled from the room.

Buffy woke up on her side, facing outward.  She rolled over, finding the other side of the bed empty.  She closed her eyes, thinking, _Not again_.  Of the three men she'd ever been with, only one had been there in the morning, and he was now in the back end of nowhere.

_Apparently it doesn't matter whether or not I have sex with them, either._

"Darn, you weren't supposed to be up yet."

Buffy rolled over.  Marco stood in the doorway, holding a breakfast tray with actual food on it. 

"I thought you were gone."

"Well, I thought it would be nice to feed you.  You were kind enough to let me sleep in your bed, the least I could do would be to cook."

Buffy grinned.  "You're sweet.  We should keep you around to make breakfast."

As much as she fought against consciousness, it was ever more persistent to keep her from falling into blissful darkness again. Cassie sighed, finally giving up the fight to stay asleep, and opened her eyes to dim, indirect sunlight. 

Someone had drawn the blackout curtains across the one big window in the room. That someone had his head down on the table, pillowed on his folded arms. 

Cassie couldn't keep a smile from her face as she watched him spring into focus with her glasses. With his closed eyes and a close approximation of bed hair, he looked nothing like the monster he had once been. 

She stretched out on the mattress, wincing at the popping and cracking of her joints. With as much stealth as she could muster, she got dressed and ran a comb through her tangle of hair. She had the strong feeling that he was a grump when his sleep was interrupted, but it might be a good idea to tell him what was going on. 

She tapped his arm. "Spike," she called softly, trying to not startle him. "Spike!"

He started awake, his eyes snapping open. "What? What?" His dark blue gaze focused on her. "Oh, it's you."

"Good morning to you, too," she teased gently.

Spike ran a hand across his face. "What time is it?"

Cassie glanced at the clock radio on the bedside table. "Nine o'clock. I just wanted to let you know I was going out to breakfast then the shop."

He nodded, trying not to give in to sleep again just yet. "Right then. Let me get in a few more hours and I'll meet y' there."

She smiled. "Thought you might. I'll put up the 'Do Not Disturb' sign. Consider the bed yours until then."

Spike managed to drudge up a little smile in return. "Thanks, pet. See ya." With that, he shed his duster, stumbled to the unmade bed, and almost immediately surrendered to the coma tugging at him. 

Cassie picked up the coat from the floor and draped it over the chair. Carefully opening the door, she slipped the little sign onto the outer doorknob and stepped out into the warm daylight. _Sleep well, Spike._

She found the Espresso Pump on the way to the shop, much to her delight, and indulged her caffeine and sugar habit with a double-vanilla mocha and a chocolate croissant. It was only once or twice every two weeks now that she gave in to her guilty pleasures, just to keep her from going completely insane from the cravings. _Not unlike a vampire for blood,_ she thought idly, then smiled at herself, shaking her head. _Okay, no more thoughts of vampires until the Magic Box. Bad enough I have one setting up house in my motel room._

The bell over the door sounded as she entered the shop at ten a.m., seeing that she was the second-to-last to arrive. Marco was leaning against the countertop with Willow's laptop in front of him, into which she had scanned most of Giles' library the previous summer. The others were seated at the large round table, piles upon piles of real books open before them. 

"This is going to sound incredibly stupid," she began, "but any luck yet?"

"Not yet," Tara replied, taking her eyes from the yellowed pages for a moment to give her a glance. "But we haven't gone through everything."

Cassie smiled. Research was one of the few things she had become really good at during her college career, and it hadn't waned for lack of practice. "Make room and hand me a book." 

Hours passed as the sun traveled its appointed path, keeping most unwanted nasties away from the shop. Spike arrived via the sewers about two in the afternoon, lending them another pair of eyes to help search. They all spent much of the day, with brief breaks for food and coffee, looking over the books with no result. 

Cassie removed her glasses, her fingers pressed into her eyeballs to make them stop hurting from the strain. She took a moment to glance around, lenses held in front of her face. Everyone was either in deep concentration over Giles' books, looking for something, anything to give them a lead; or simply dead to the world. 

The only one who wasn't hunched over a book or napping was Spike, taking a break with a lit cigarette. He looked up to see her eyes on him, and gave her a little smirk. Cassie bit her lip to keep from laughing out loud. It was almost funny seeing him trying to keep up his image of the "big bad vampire." But there was one thing that she wanted to know, and only he had the answer. 

"Hey, Spike, join me in the training room for a bit?" she asked, slipping the glasses back onto her face. "I need a short workout and I hate doing it alone."

He cocked a questioning eyebrow at her, and she knew that Marco was doing the exact same thing. Spike shrugged and nodded. "Fine with me."

Marco shot Spike a questioning look, which was ignored, sighed and went back to the notebook computer, tapping the "page down" key repeatedly. Spike couldn't hurt her, and he knew she could beat him red, black, and various other colors of the rainbow… and some that weren't.

Spike and Cassie sparred for a while, he blocking every punch and kick she threw at him. She even tried a gymnastic-type move she'd seen Buffy use. She wound up losing her balance and would have hit the floor had Spike not caught her.

She looked up at him with a self-deprecating smile. "Well, it's confirmed: no way am I a Slayer."

"No, but I wouldn't worry." He carefully set her back on her feet. 

"Thanks." She picked up the water bottle from the corner and took a swig, looking at him again. "Spike, do you mind if I ask you a personal question? You don't have to answer if you don't want to," she added quickly.

Spike smiled at her attempt to not embarrass him. It was almost endearing, really. "As long as the option's open, pet, shoot."

She couldn't help but grin. "You're lucky Marco's not around to hear that."

Spike laughed, realizing what her brother would have done with the straight line. "You're right… So, ask."

"Why didn't you attack me that first night we met?"

He furrowed his brows at her. "Why would I want to?"

"Well, I would _assume_ that a vampire, and as far as I can tell a soulless one at that, would want to drink a girl to death rather than stake a fellow vamp to save her life." She gazed at him expectantly. 

He sighed and launched into an abbreviated explanation of his being wired with an electronic muzzle. "And even if I get it out, I don't think I wanna go back t' the way things were before."

She smiled at him. Thanks to Giles and Anya, she had heard a lot of horror stories about Spike pre-chip, but she had a good feeling about him now. He wasn't Angel, not by a long shot, but he had his own demon to rein in and fight against. And it wasn't just because of the chip, but because, and for, the Slayer. It also helped that she could still read eyes well, even when they supposedly didn't have a soul behind them. 

"I don't know why they doubt that you care about her, or any of them."

Spike smiled. "Well, your brother doubts it," he reminded her. "With the threats to m' person an' all."

"If you didn't have the chip, you could have hurt me and you didn't. Besides, I can be just as bad tempered as Marco." The look on his face told her he didn't believe her, but she smiled anyway. "Hey, just don't give him an excuse to hurt you." She tugged on his sleeve. "Come on, let's get back out there and figure out what's going on."

The vampire made a mental note as he watched her walk into the shop again: never get the Cattalano family pissed.

Page down. Page down. Page down. At last, he encountered the same tangle of red hair, the green eyes staring out from a demonic vampire face. "Gotcha, you bitch!" Marco snarled, startling the others with its ferocity.  He swiveled in place to look at the others, his eyes bright with an odd sort of joy.  "I've got her!" he roared.

"Finally!" Spike said. "Startin' t' get eyesore lookin' at all these books."

Cassie rubbed her own eyes behind her glasses. "How do you think I feel? And I _like_ reading!" 

Marco showed around the digitized hand-drawn picture of this new and powerful vampire. Buffy nodded. "Yup. That's her."

"Who'd you think I'd find? Bela Lugosi?" he asked. He spun the computer around so the others could see. "Check out the bad news."

Buffy squinted at the words. "Um, anyone here understand this?"

Cassie motioned for the screen and looked over the text. "It's a _really_ bad scan." After another moment, she began, "Okay, her name is Nuala na Connemarragh."  The "ua" came out with a long "oo" sound.

"Is that some sort of disease?" Xander replied.

Anya nodded.  "Sounds nasty."  

"Isn't Connemara where they get all that nice marble?" Willow asked.

"It is," Marco replied. "But in this case, it might be talking about where she's from, where she was born. So her name's literally 'Nuala from Connemara.'  Although she could have been born in Belfast for all the name means now."

"Actually, it says she was from Ulster…. To continue," Cassie said pointedly, returning to the text. "She was born in 1183." She cocked her eyebrow, a small smile quirking her lips. "Talk about your good years." 

Marco frowned at her poor attempt to joke. "Keep going." 

"She was sired in 1201." She paused, regret briefly tingeing her blue eyes. "She would've been eighteen." She shook her head and kept going. "There's something here about who—no, _what_ she was before she was turned, the explanation for why she's so powerful. She—" She stopped, her eyes widening to dessert plates (dinner plates seemed to be impossible for her). "Oh God," she breathed.

Buffy fidgeted, starting to feel nervous. "What? What is it?"

Cassie swallowed. "It says that, before she was turned, she was a Slayer." She brought her gaze up from the screen. "Guys, we're dealing with a Slayer vampire."

Everyone was shocked into silence.

"A Slayer," Buffy whispered. She looked around the table, her eyes settling on Spike. "That even possible?"

Spike shrugged. "First time I've heard of it happenin'. Didn't even think a Slayer _could_ be turned, but it's the kinda thing a really old master vamp has wet dreams about. Turning the enemy of his kind—our kind—into one of his own."

Silence again descended on the room, as everyone was lost in thoughts rife with implications. Some vampire had been lucky enough to not only kill a Slayer but also turn her. Somehow, this had automatically made her stronger than vampire or Slayer human. Buffy silently mourned for the soul of the vampire that they now had to fight.

Cassie tipped some water from her glass and dabbed at her eyes, causing her to cry a little. She was sore and tired and she felt like she could sleep for a week. It was hard getting her brain to work after her long-ago caffeine fix that morning. 

"So why Ireland?" Marco asked.  "Why a Gaelic vampire?"

"Well," Giles began, taking off his glasses.  "The Council… the Watcher's Council… started in Africa, as was proper for the first Slayer."

"Yeah," Buffy said, "she did talk with a bit of an accent."

Marco cocked a brow, but said nothing.  

"Wait a second," Xader exclaimed, "there were Watchers even before there were books?  Is that allowed?"

"In any event," Giles continued, cleaning his glasses, ignoring him.  "The Council moved with the rest of the human race.  Unlike some movements up through Spain, Italy, and Turkey to get to Europe, the Council went through the Middle East, arriving at Russia through Afghanistan. After that, they traveled with the Celts through Europe to Northern Spain.  Apparently, with their ability to spin and believe faery stories, they had no problem with a woman who could snap swords in two."

"And under Druidic law, they were almost equal in status to men, and just as ferocious," Cassie noted.  

"And that was just the normal woman," Marco added. "I take it these Celts had no problem with vampires or demons, either?"

"Patently not. They would have great whopping attacks against demons, and having a good time of it too, apparently. They were a good part of the army that first disassembled the Judge."

"They had…fun?" Buffy said, a little incredulous.

"Yeah," Marco said. "They spent a lot of days raiding as a pastime…. From each other and anyone else around, usually."  

"They even made an epic over one," Cassie added.

"What _Herr_ Giles managed to leave out," Marco continued, "was that the Celts sacked Rome at one point, even Turkey."

"Gobble, gobble," Xander joked, and chuckled at his own pathetic joke.

Spike lit another cigarette and looked at him. "Don't you ever get any thought in your head that _stays_ there?" He inhaled deeply and puffed out smoke in Giles' direction. "So how did they all end up like you?"

"1601," Marco stated. "Hugh O'Neil's rebellion. The Council moved to England from Ireland?"

"Not exactly. They moved in 1200s, under Henry II, after Richard DeClare arrived at the head of the King of Lenster's mercenaries. The Council has been there for seven hundred years. The Slayer, however, has shown up multiple places, though a good deal of them has managed to reside in Ireland. Something about the breed that works."****

"So if a staking won't work, what will?" Buffy asked, finally asking the question no one wanted to voice.

"Maybe we need some overkill," Marco commented, his tone sounding as if he were thinking out loud.

Everyone gave him curious glances, prompting him to go on. "Well, you know about Rasputin?" he asked. "He had to be shot, stabbed, poisoned, beaten, and drowned before he finally died. How about you burn her, stake her, toss her into the sunlight, and cut her head off? There's a _reason_ my stakes are doused in turpentine."

"It's not that staking her won't work," Giles said. "You must understand, a Slayer vampire is something new and extremely volatile."

"New?" Spike choked. "The bleeding girl is more than four times my age!"

"I guess that means dating her is out," Willow said innocently.

"It's never been done, before or since," the Watcher replied. "Nuala seems to come out of the shadows every few years, kill someone important, then disappear again," he said quickly, exasperated. He breathed deeply, and continued, calmer. "No one _knows_ what exactly would kill her. She seems to have the strength of a Slayer times that of a vampire, therefore we can reasonably assume her healing powers are just as great. Maybe it's just a matter of putting in the stake and making sure it stays there long enough for it to have effect."

"You're rather annoyed for someone who only just encountered this thing," Marco observed. "It sounds almost personal. What is it?"

Giles sighed and removed his glasses once more. "You see… the Council suspects that Nuala is directed somehow, though she's not of the Order of Tarraka. Her targets seem too well picked to be random guesses from a list of intended victims. In fact, she almost never feeds from them, or even kills them at close range. Her preferred weapon is a rapparre: a light Gaelic spear."

Buffy looked at Marco. "What she used on us last night."

He raised a finger. "_Tried_ to use on us last night."

"Just so," the Watcher continued. "She's also used a crossbow, and other various weapons. The last assassination on record was with a rifle in the 1800s. The only reason we know it was her is the mark she left on the bullet extracted from him. "

"So we're dealing with a vampiric hit-woman," Xander remarked. "Perfect. So she's after Buffy."

"And Marco," Buffy put in. 

"What makes you think _he's_ on the vampire hit parade?" Willow asked her.

Spike shot her a look. "Do you need to ask? We've been around him for weeks and we hate him. Most vamps would've eaten 'im long ago."

"Will, what about that demon you all fought last month?" Buffy said. "If he was killed, and if he were taken out by Marco, don't you think someone'd want payback?"

Cassie knew what she meant, but didn't want Marco to stake Spike for telling her. "Whoa, hold on," she said, making a time-out signal with her hands. "What demon?" 

"A little problem we dealt with last month," Marco said absentmindedly. "It was a team effort, really, I just stayed with my talents and made a point to honk the guy off."

Cassie nodded, her flickering eyes saying she didn't believe him, but let it go for right now. "Okay, but what Buffy's saying makes sense. It's kinda like saying, 'You mess with me, you mess with my family'." 

Buffy's eyes darkened ever so slightly. "Well, now she's messed with _my_ family. And I'm not gonna let her get away with it."

Willow looked over at Marco, who had drifted into his own mind. "Marco? Something wrong?"

His eyes flashed for a moment and he turned to her, eyes gleaming manically. "Nothing… yet." He stood and whirled in one, smooth motion. "Cassie! How old did you say our girl was?"

Her face fell. "Eighteen."

"No!" he said, excited. "Sired when?"

"Twelve hundred and one," Giles answered. "About the time the Watcher's Council moved to England. Why? Something amiss?"

Marco's head twitched to Giles. "I know this witch." He glanced at Willow. "My apologies."  

"No problem."

He looked to Cassie. "Remember our friend from Brooklyn? The big vampire?"

Cassie's mind was filled with the towering image of the giant vampire she'd had to kill. "How could I forget? I remember hearing a name like Mikhail."

Spike glanced at Cassie. "Mikhail the Bear? You dusted _'im_?"

"Well, he was _built_ like a bear. You've met?"

"Right sure I did. He beat me up back about the turn of the century. I wandered into the midst of a nest he was settin' up, and 'e was pissed."

"Back to me for a moment," Marco said. He stepped in front of Buffy and smiled. "I recently chatted with your old boyfriend, and apparently, our friendly Russian vampire in Brooklyn had been trained by a rather vicious, eight hundred year old vampire from Ulster.  Sound like anyone we know?"

He whirled toward Spike. "If you were an assassin whose only goal was to kill someone, how would you do it?"

Spike looked at him funny. "Why the 'ell are you askin' _me_?"

"Because you're the closest thing we have to a killing machine. I'm afraid I'd want to have too much _fun_," Marco snapped at him. "And the only good quality about you is that you aren't a sadist, so _answer my damn question, okay_?"

Cassie stepped back a little from Marco, getting a small glimmer of what he'd hidden from her. His eyes sparkled with a distant…something. It was dark, it was scary, and it was her brother.

"I'd simply kill you both," Spike stated. "If I were going to do it, I'd do her first, then you, but preferably at the same time—"

"That's why she waited for us to be right next to each other," Buffy said.

Marco nodded, not looking away from Spike. "Continue."

"And I'd try to hit you when you're not expectin' it."

Marco nodded again slowly, thoughtfully. Then his eyes widened suddenly and he jumped on Buffy an instant before the sound of a pistol rang through the Magic Box, breaking through the storefront window, ripping through the shutters, and impacting in Marco's back.


	5. Thou Shalt not Mess with the Scoobies of...

Chapter 4: Thou Shalt Not Mess With the Scoobies of the Hellmouth 

As Buffy moved to roll Marco onto his back, "Stay…down" came hoarsely from his lips. Another bullet entered his back, followed by the whip-crack of a rifle bullet breaking the sound barrier.

Buffy looked toward the back of the store.  Everyone else had already dropped to the floor. She reached up and dragged herself and Marco along the wooden boards, moving for cover in the reading niche off to the side—the table alone wouldn't provide cover for the amount of firepower being tossed at them.

For the first time in a long time, Cassie muttered a frightened obscenity under her breath.

"What's she using, a thermal imaging telescopic sight on top of a rifle?" Xander asked from behind the counter, then paused. "…Geez, I don't believe I remember that."

Spike smiled, looking down from his chair. He slid back and stood, puffing a little at his cigarette. "Bullets, eh? Well, I guess that leaves me safe—"

The next three rounds hit him square in the chest, knocking him to the floor.

"So much for the thermal theory," Giles remarked. "Whatever happened to old fashioned fangs and claws? Maybe even a battleaxe?"

Spike groaned as he staggered to his feet. "Bloody bint.  I'm gonna—"

He was cut off by a rapparee coming through the front door, nailing him to the stairs. He looked down to see the spear protruding from his body, his eyes radiating pain.

"She's got Slayer radar," Willow said in awe.

"She's got what?" Cassie asked, glancing at the redhead. 

"Slayers get to sense vampires and stuff, without looking."

Buffy rolled Marco off of her and onto his stomach.  "And it looks like her range is longer than mine. I didn't even feel her coming."

Cassie crept to Marco's other side, and they both stripped away his clothes, only to find, under his jacket and shirt, a piece of solid white plastic with several bullets lodged into it.

"What the hell is this?" Cassie asked.

Marco groaned and rolled over onto his side. "It's called the fifty dollar Kevlar vest I got out of _Quartermaster_…I figured around here, it couldn't exactly hurt."

Cassie: "How did you know she'd—"

"I didn't," he moaned as he made his way to a sitting position. "I figured if I jumped Buffy, the worst that could happen would be that I'd look even dumber than usual."

"Good boy, you get a treat later," Buffy told him, patting him on the head. "Assuming we all live."

"No fair, Spike's already dead."

"Whatever."

Cassie refrained from rolling her eyes at their banter and looked at Spike sliding himself off the spear, looking really annoyed and in not a little pain.  The spear was made of metal, so he was still undead…for the moment.  Any more damage to the shutters, the sun would come through and…._Oy. _"Marco, you still have that laser pointer of yours? The little one on the key chain?"

He nodded and smiled. "You're going to trace the trajectory of the spears? Be my guest."

Cassie reached into his pocket, grabbed his keys and tossed them at Spike. "Spike, catch!"

Spike grabbed them in mid-flight with one hand, holding the other to the wound in his chest. "What am I supposed to do with it?" 

Another spear came through the window and went through the bookcases providing cover for Buffy, Marco, Willow and Cassie. It stuck in the bookcase coming out, nearly tipping it over.  

Cassie shot out a hand, using it and her body to steady the shelves. "Place it alongside the spear and turn it on."

Spike did so, and the red beam shot through the hole the spear came through.  Buffy immediately ripped the rapparee from the bookcase and leapt into the center of the shop, throwing the spear along the path of the beam.

An instant before, Nuala the vampire looked down at the red dot on her chest and said, "Clever girl."

Then her own spear nailed her in the chest, knocking her off the floor and ramming her to the ceiling.

Cassie glanced over at Spike, seeing him still clutching a hand to his chest. "You okay?"

He smiled reassuringly at her. "Nothing that won't heal." His eyes suddenly widened much like Marco's had before and he roared, "Cassie, down!" He tackled her as the door imploded.

She felt all her bones rattle and her breath knocked from her body as she met the linoleum with a heavy vampire on top of her. "Ow!" she wheezed painfully. "Spike, get the hell off me!"

He had the grace to look embarrassed as he scrambled away. "Sorry."

"Oh, you're sorry all right," a female voice said. "A sorry excuse for a vampire."

They both whirled to see the living version of the digital sketch, her eyes glowing at them like a pair of deadly gems. Buffy stood before her, matching her eyes with equal annoyance, and she briefly wondered how she could have jumped across the street through sunlight without even a sizzle.

"I've been tearin' blokes apart fer over a century," Spike retorted, not noticing he was ignored.

"So," Buffy said, "you were just like me, huh? Slayer? Watcher? Whole bit?"

Nuala nodded. "And I didn't have the good sense to stay dead either."

Buffy shrugged. "Well, I never did know when to take a hint."

Nuala raised one hand, ready to strike, when she flicked it down in time to block a knife blade with the back of her hand. She glanced at Marco. "You and the other mark."

Marco gave her a weak smile as he stood, using the bookcase for support. "Marc-_o_, not Mark." He straightened painfully. "You don't like to die, do you?"

She merely smiled. She stepped toward Buffy and Spike slid into her way.  

"Hey, bitch, I'm not exactly chopped sweetbreads 'ere."

Nuala glared at Spike. "You know, at one point today I considered wiping the floor since you converted—I even stopped by your home—but now I see you're just as pathetic as ever."

"Hey!" Spike reached for her.

Nuala delivered a sharp blow to his stomach with her left hand, Marco's wooden knife still protruding from it. He doubled-over in pain, then she slammed her elbow into his back. "My sire talked like you. It took me eight days to kill _him_."

"Only eight?" Marco asked curiously. Spike shot him a pained, yet killer look from the floor. Nuala stepped onto the vampire's back, then launched herself at Buffy. The Slayer had leapt back in anticipation, just like Marco had done to her. Nuala had a longer reach, faster moves, a stronger body, and this was trouble.

"_Rea_!" Willow called.  

Nuala snapped toward the witch and her eyes burned, actually scaring Willow, even as the beams of light shot from her fingers through the vampire's gut. Nuala looked down at the holes and growled, not caring about how the redhead had harnessed sunlight at her fingertips.  

At once, Spike and Buffy leapt at her from different sides. Without looking at them, she blocked their blows with lighting limbs and simultaneously hooked her foot around the leg of the table and flung it at Willow, making her duck under the counter again.  

As Spike, Buffy, and Nuala fought, Cassie searched underneath the countertop. "Come on, Giles, where do you keep the battleaxe-sized crucifixes?" she murmured.

Nuala blocked another of the Slayer's blows with her left hand and back-kicked at her, knocking her off her feet.  At the same time, she whacked Spike upside the head with her right hand, making him soar toward the beams of sunlight from off the street.  He rolled out of the way, putting the fire out.  In mid-kick, Marco threw another knife at her.  Due to his injuries, his aim was off and the blade landed in the buttock muscle, making the leg she balanced on collapse.  She fell, face first, into the floor.  She pulled the knife out and rolled, flinging it toward Marco's head, only he had fallen back down again the moment she pulled it out.

Nuala pushed off the floor and whirled back to Spike, only to find Cassie standing between them with a cross bigger than Cassie's torso. "Back, hellspawn!"

Nuala looked at her like she was insane and said, "That is so absurd.  Can't you get any better lines?"

"I agree, Cassie," Marco added from the floor. "That was awful."

Tara stood from behind the counter. "Stay still." 

Nuala looked at her and said, "Huh?" 

Tara nodded, and let the two-dozen bottles of holy water drop onto the vampire. Nuala was surrounded in one giant burst of steam and wailed like a damned soul. With blurring speed, she dashed out into the street, and leapt through a manhole cover to the sewer below.  

Spike slowly stood, creaking.  "Well, that was fun." 

"Think we can expect other tricks, too?" Marco asked.

Giles slowly rose from the floor.  "Well, we've seen vampires with extraordinary powers and abilities: the ability to mesmerize, telekinesis, shape-shifting—"

"Able to leapt tall buildings in a single bound," Marco muttered.

"Making earthquakes, calling animals to themselves…" Tara began.  

Willow looked at her and smiled.  "No, honey, that's from those Anita Blake novels you've been reading."

As soon as the sun was low enough, Spike escorted Cassie back to her motel. The way Spike moved, Cassie was reminded of Marco, his eyes darting back and forth across the shadows as if expecting Nuala to jump out and rip his head off. His fists clenched and unclenched as though ready to punch through a wall—or a sidewalk, or any of the buildings they walked by. 

"Nervous?" she asked.

"Who, me? Nah. I'm used t' walkin' through this town expectin' someone t' kill me. Last year an' a half now." 

Cassie gave him a curious glance. "Why a year and a half?" 

Spike shrugged. "That's how long it's been since I've been chipped. Can only beat the hell outta demons now."

"Has anyone ever told you you like beating the hell out of people far too much?"

"Me? Look 't your brother."

Cassie involuntarily shuddered as she remembered the look in Marco's eyes at the shop. "I think I'd rather not."

He turned to her just as they reached the door of her room, and realized why she replied the way she did. "You know, don't y'?" he asked gently. "Y' saw his eyes."

"I'm not sure what I saw."

Spike turned into Cassie's path and stopped. "Like hell you aren't. You know what you saw like I did. Your brother is dangerous, something to be put down before he crosses a line somewhere."

Cassie glared at him, blue fire flashing in her eyes. "You mean like you?" she snapped. Before he could react, she slammed both hands into his chest, sending him sprawling into the room with her stalking in after him and shutting the door. She had to step over his body to sit on the bed. 

"My brother is _not_ like you," she continued venomously. "He may have a temper, but he has a soul. He—" she trailed off as if a thought had struck her dumb, then curled into a ball, unable to speak.

Spike looked up to see tears forming in her eyes. "Cassie?"

She began to shiver uncontrollably; a bone-deep, psychological cold that could not be easily dismissed. 

He leapt up and shed his duster, throwing it about her shoulders. For some reason, he felt protective of this young woman, so incredibly different from her brother. He watched as tears silently rolled down her cheeks and she drew the coat tight around her. He sat beside her, his arm drawing her into a tentative hug. 

"I'm sorry," she whispered.

"What for?"

"You didn't deserve that. You can't fight back, and I took advantage of it." She turned her body to put her arms around him. "I'm scared—terrified, even—and angry that I feel so helpless."

He felt her tears soak into his T-shirt as he held her, resisting the urge to rock her as he had with Drusilla when she'd been physically sick. "Hey, we'll get this bitch before she causes any real damage."

She shook her head. "It's not just Nuala; it's Marco. What I saw—it was dark, empty. For the first time, I'm actually a little afraid of my little brother. _My own brother._" She lifted her teary eyes to meet his. "Do you know what that's like, being afraid of someone you care about? Or worse, of something that caused you to be afraid in the first place?"

He smiled gently at her. "Believe it or not, I think I do."

They sat in silence for another moment or two before Cassie heard a chuckle rumble up from his otherwise silent chest. "What's so funny?"

"Sorry, pet. Just thinkin' 'bout you this afternoon at the shop." He backed away and mimicked her. "'Back, 'ellspawn!' What were you thinkin'?"

She whacked him lightly in the arm, fighting and giving in to the urge to grin. "Hey, it was the best line I could come up with! See how well _you_ come up with original lines when you're panicking and all you can channel are old vampire movies."

"Well—"

Nuala leapt through the motel room door, grabbed Spike by the scruff of the neck and threw him out the door before he could blink; he landed in the middle of traffic. She whirled on Cassie, who threw Spike's duster at her. The vampire swept it aside and charged into a stream of holy water from Cassie's squirt gun (an idea she had stolen from her more destructive/creative brother). She really and truly wanted to turn her hairspray and lighter into a flamethrower, but there was no time. 

Nuala flinched, her eyes steaming. Cassie kicked the assassin in the face and rolled off the bed simultaneously. Without her eyes, Nuala went for Cassie, running into the stake up Cassie's sleeve.  

Nuala's eyes reflexively squeezed shut through the pain and she dropped to her knees.  

Cassie rushed out the door.  

With an effort, Nuala drew the stake out of her heart, then opened her eyes, fresh and new and unburned.  

And _hungry_.

Cassie ran into the parking lot, looking for Spike, unaware that he was the equivalent of four city blocks away. "Damn, Spike, where are you?!" She was about to turn toward the Magic Box when—

"Stop!" Nuala ordered, and Cassie froze. The vampire appeared before her in seconds. Its eyes glowed a shimmering green. Cassie couldn't move.

"Now we're going to use you as bait, young lady," Nuala said. "It's a bad cliché, but clichés are clichés because they generally work. I may even keep you alive. After all, it's honestly nothing personal, love; it's all business. I try to kill only those I'm told to.  Now come and walk with me. Your brother can meet us at Spike's home."


	6. The Most Dangerous Game

Chapter 5: The Most Dangerous Game 

"Do you know why your sister didn't want to eat with us?" Buffy asked him at the dinner table.

"Could it be because he's a walking target?" Willow asked. 

Buffy looked at her friend. Willow wasn't usually that blunt…or in this case, rude. 

Marco intercepted and decoded the look like an NSA transmission. "Willow's right, actually. I told Cassie to leave. I would tell Willow and Tara to leave, too, but they could probably protect both of us."

"Hey, I could hold my own against her."

He nodded. "With Spike's help, and Cassie's help, and Tara's help, and my throwing knife into her leg didn't hurt either. Let's face it, even I'll admit she's a little more than my match, and I'll deny that under any future questioning."

Tara looked at Buffy. "Do you think Dawn will be alright with Anya and Xander?"

"Sure, she's survived there before, no reason why she can't now."

Spike crashed through the front door, barely remembering to open it, and fell to his knees in exhaustion. His duster was a little worn about his shoulders.

Willow rushed to his side and said, "You look like you've been hit by a bus. What happened?"

Spike looked up at her. "I _was_ hit by a bus, and a minivan, and one of those extra-large things that get eight miles to the gallon."

"An SUV," Marco stated.  He slid away from the table and stood, walking over to Spike.  "Where's my sister?"

The vampire looked at Marco.  "Nuala followed us to the motel.  She took Cassie to my crypt.  She wants you, and the Slayer."

Marco nodded, and shrugged.  "You can tell her that she can meet me at that old mansion in the cemetery."

Spike slowly got to his feet.  "Don't you get it, mate?  She's going to kill 'er if you don't go where she says."

"In that case, she doesn't get her prize, now does she?  She'll get my sister, who she wasn't sent to kill."  

Spike stood toe to toe with Marco, glaring.  "What sort of inhuman monster are you?"

The vampire watched as the eyes of the creature before him changed.  "I'm a creature who wants to keep on living.  And if Nuala wants to die, she can kill my sister.  If she wants me to die, she can bloody well kill me where I _want_ to die.  Tell her that, Spike.  And if she really wants to kill Cassie, let her."

Nuala had seated Cassie on the cement bier in the center of the upper level of the crypt as she waited for her prey. Cassie stared blankly ahead as Nuala paced up and down and back and forth. 

The redheaded vampire soon wearied of the usual nighttime sounds and turned to the bait for her little trap. "You can talk now. I'm bored."

Cassie blinked, shaking her head to clear it. "Oh man, love to know how you pulled that off. On the other hand, no, I don't." She turned her eyes on her captor. "Please don't put me under again. I'd rather be silent under threat of death than under mind control. And granted, my brother's a big ol' pain in the ass, but he's not worth dying over, is he?"

The green eyes glared at her. "And what makes you think I'm the one that's going to die?"

Cassie shrugged. "You said clichés are clichés because they generally work. Marco's not one for falling into them as easily as you think."

Nuala stalked up to her like the predator she was and lightly raked her fingernails up Cassie's throat to drive her chin up. "And what kind of monster would he be if he allowed his family to be harmed?"

"He's not as unthinking a monster as you believe, bint."

Nuala whirled to see the black-clad vampire whose home she'd commandeered. 

Spike ignored her for the moment, looking around her to see Cassie. "You okay, pet?"

Cassie gave him a tiny smile of reassurance and a nod.

"And what are you doing here, gelding?" Nuala snapped. "Where is he?"

"First, this is my home. Second—don't stake the messenger—but your local mark isn't all that eager to willingly come to his death like some hero from a bad romance novel."

Cassie allowed herself a grin. "Told you."

Nuala spared her a killer glance. "This is your death threat: Shut up."

Cassie clamped her lips shut, but she continued to smile slightly. 

The redhead turned on Spike. "And you should watch your mouth about bad romance novels. I've read through your TV guide, and you don't want to hear my comments on your pysch profile. From all appearances, you're still a loser from the Victorian age, whining over lost love and still looking for it.  A little insecure, are you?"

"Yeah, whatever," Spike replied, letting his eyes drift to a particularly dusty spider web in the corner, but his sight was always on her; he was always bored with psychology, even when he and Dru were together. Besides, her analysis was a little too close to the bull's-eye, and he wasn't about to let on. "Any event, Marco'd really rather not come to you."  He sat down on a chair.  "In fact, if I were you—and I 'ave been—I wouldn't lay money on him comin' to you anyway…and I wouldn't eat the girl, either. He might get a li'l touchy if you do." 

Nuala strode up to him and looked down.  "And what about you?"

Spike barked a short, sharp laugh. "What _about_ me? You think that 'e's gonna give a damn about what 'appens t' _me_? Gawd, you really _are_ Irish, aren't you?  Only one of _them_'d be crazy enough to think that. Frankly, I'd be just as happy if you get to kill at least one or two of them. It'd leave me with a little peace and quiet. 'Specially Marco. He's up at the mansion on Crawford Street.  Frankly, lady, you can have him." 

Cassie watched him silently through his little nonchalant tirade, feeling tears beginning to gather behind her eyes. Spike wouldn't allow Buffy to die all over again, let alone allow Nuala to kill her. She had to believe he was just putting on a show for the assassin's benefit.

Spike could feel Cassie's emotions from his chair, her eyes on him. He had to give the impression that he didn't care, no matter how much it hurt. It was still up for grabs who he was hurting more, himself or Cassie. He was out of practice acting the Big Bad, and he hoped he was pulling it off.

Nuala looked at Spike for a moment, wondering whether or not to believe him, and in either case if she should kill him or not.  She nodded curtly, then blurred through the air, delivering a spin kick to his head.  He spun several times, then fell to the floor, comatose.

Later, Spike would open his eyes and mutter, "I'm startin' t' miss the Hell Bitch."

Nuala closed her eyes and searched for Marco throughout the house, using her mind to feel him out.  

Gotcha! 

She glanced at Cassie.  "Follow."

Marco waited for Nuala to come to him.  He was in an ancient bathroom straight out of the 1920s, with a cast iron bathtub.  His eyes were closed, and he was deep in meditation.  He was dressed in a neat black turtleneck and pants—he could never abide jeans.  The darkness was so complete, his head looked as though it floated, detached from his body.  A slot was cut into the wooden door at eye level so he could see out into the hallway.  

He waited for the vampire, and hoped for death.

Nuala was on the second floor, wondering where everyone else was.  She had trouble believing that Marco would come here all alone.  She smiled at the arrogance of the trap.  

"Wait here."

Cassie stopped in the middle of the room.  It was a corner room of the building, so three of the walls had windows in them.  The fourth wall had no window, only the opening to the hallway and a closet.  Even in Cassie's frozen condition, she felt the room to be abnormally warm for a house with no heating.

Nuala walked the hallway of the second floor, smiling at Marco's games.  Each room she passed had been installed with a back draft.  She had learned about it through her PhD in physics, and a little through her chemistry…after all, after you've been around for a thousand years, you have to keep your mind sharp somehow.  The rooms had had fires started in each of them, but were oxygen deprived.  The fires burned out, but the heat remained.  The slightest wisp of air would result in an explosion of nothing but fire.  

The vampire stopped in front of the bathroom and turned.  She crouched a little to looked into the door, and there was Marco, ready for death. 

Nuala stood and tilted to the side, curling one leg beneath her, ready to push her energy into one kick that would turn to door to shrapnel and kill the target easily.  

She kicked, and the door exploded.  

Outward.

Deadly splinters ripped into flesh, tore and shredded.  

Nuala was knocked backward by the explosion and slammed into the wall, her left side a mass of wood.  Her arm, leg, buttock, and parts of her back were pincushions.  She felt pain for the first time in years.  She looked up to see a disembodied head floating in the mist.  

Marco stood serenely in the doorframe, eyes peaceful.  He launched himself at her, kicking into the splinters, driving his fist down into her back.  She sprang away from him.  The push from her good leg sent her all the way down the hall, back the way she came.  With a pivot the speed of sound, she twirled, sending half the splinters from her leg into the hall toward Marco with the centrifugal force.  He dove back into the bathroom, giving Nuala time to pull out some of the pieces from her body.  The splinters Marco had kicked had been driven in too deep to be extracted now.  

Nuala grabbed Cassie and moved out of the hallway's line of sight.  She released Cassie from her mesmerized state and said, "Scream."  

"Fu—"

Nuala didn't need to hear the rest, and bit Cassie, who screamed in reflex.

Marco's eyes burned as he walked out of the bathroom with a crossbow.  He had taken out the door with nitroglycerin, and had hoped it would have slowed Nuala down more than it had.  

He walked into the room slowly, crossbow ahead of him. His sister was in his sights, Nuala holding her directly in front of her own body. 

"Put down the bow, and she's out of here," she purred.

"Marco don't—"

Marco let his smile slide over his mouth, cutting his sister off.  "And I hate to sound cliché about all this, but I really must say you aren't in the situation that will allow me to believe you."

Nuala cocked a brow.  "Do you always use so many words?"

He shrugged.  "Part Irish… you know how it is."

She nodded.  "That I do.  So, how do you want to see this done?"

"Well, how about this: let my sister go, and you can try to turn me into a vampire.  Think about it, when was the last time someone's been this much trouble for you?"

Nuala's expression became thoughtful.  "The trouble is thinking of the first time."

Marco beamed.  "Exactly!  Now, you put Cassie down, I put this down, and we can have fun together, what do you say?"

Marco locked eyes with his sister, flickering them down. She followed his gaze until she saw his fingers spelling something in ASL.

K-n-e-e, o-n, then held out his thumb and first two fingers.

Her eyes flickered back up to his, understanding tingeing her small smile.

With that, Spike flew up the stairs, stopping at Marco's left side.  "Hold on, luv, the Big Bad's gonna—"

"Spike!" Marco cut him off. "I always thought you're name belonged to a dog."  He whirled on Spike.  "Play dead." Marco fired into his chest. "One."  

"Hey, bitch," Cassie said to the vampire holding her in a death grip, "I've something to say to you."

"And what would that be?" Nuala purred dangerously in her ear.

"Two," Marco murmured, firing into Spike's chest again.  The vampire looked down in shock as the force of the arrow at point blank knocked him out the window.  

_"Pog mo thoin,"_ Cassie spat.

Marco whirled.  "Three!"

With a lunge of strength, Cassie raked her foot down the vampire's leg and dislocated her kneecap, making her hunch forward far enough for Marco's last arrow to land in her shoulder. Cassie used the moment to whirl around quickly and backhand the redhead with her fist.

Nuala waved Cassie away into the wall, knocking her out.  Marco dropped the crossbow as Nuala turned on him, hands bare.  The redhead looked down at his side, cocking her brow.  There hung a cavalry sword, ready to be drawn.  

"That too?"

Marco glanced down, as though he hadn't remembered it there.  "I'm not going to use it.  You want it?"

Nuala shook her head.  "No thanks."

Marco shrugged and threw it off to the side in one smooth motion, the belt followed.  "I'd hate to put you at a disadvantage."

"Disadvantage?"

He slid into an easy combat stance, waiting.  "I'm already a genius, so you're no match for me."

"Listen, child, I'm a Ph.D. six times over. So we'll have no talk of you being smarter until you manage to finish me."

"Have at ye, then."

Nuala exploded at him, and he leapt backward, blocking blows, and striking at nerve points.  Her reach was as long as his, and he wanted to stay out of it.  She threw a right cross through a wall, and he had already ducked under it and kicked into her diaphragm and pushed off, back out of reach.  Nuala's body froze with the impact, and he swung once more, smashing his palm across her face.  He leapt back as she spun, sending a roundhouse punch to tear his head off; she missed by a hair as he leapt underneath it.  By the time he had grabbed her, Nuala's back was to him, and he secured a grip on her collar and belt.  

Marco lifted her off the floor and over his head.  He turned toward the closet and threw her, hoping the door would break and the back draft he had planted there would rip forth and through her.  The walk-in closet would hold enough force to rip through the both of them, but Marco no longer cared, as long as the vampire was dead.  

Nuala bounced off the wooden door and came right back at him.  He crouched as she flew overhead, and sprang into her stomach, grabbed her crotch and chest.  He charged at the door, slamming her against it, cursing it as the only thing in that house that held up.  

The vampire rolled from his grip and onto the floor, grabbing him in a bear hug.  Her green eyes glowed like crystals as she sank her teeth into the collar of his turtleneck.  Marco struggled, desperate for a stake.

Cassie's eyes opened slowly to the sounds of a struggle.  Her brother's breath came through clear and loud, while the grunts of Nuala acted as punctuations for his breathing.  Walls were broken, wood was slammed.  She looked up in time for the vampire to finally struggle away from Marco and grab him, holding him face to face with the ghastly visage of the vampire's almost mangled countenance. She grabbed her brother and bit into his neck.  

Cassie growled weakly and glanced over to a shiny bit of metal on the floor.

Nuala's teeth sent shocks of pain shooting through her head, and she ripped herself away from her victim, staggering into the middle of the room, a curved piece of wood in her mouth.

Marco straightened and smiled as he touched his ruined collar.  "Got something stuck in your teeth?  It's a wooden collar, soaked in holy water. Hope you don't mind."

Nuala growled and braced herself to tear Marco's throat out.  A fist connected with the wood, taking her canines out with it.  Her head snapped back as she rocked with the blow.  

"Like that, bitch?" Spike growled, punching her in her bad arm.  More pain ripped her mind, and she punched Spike with her palm, sending his nose into his brain.  Since brain damage had never stopped him before, he whirled with a flourish of his duster and whipped a foot past her face.  She grabbed him with her best hand and raised him over her head.  

"If you had just stayed out of the way, you might have lived.  Now you don't get that much."  

Nuala threw Spike deliberately against the wall, so hard that he broke it.

The window behind her smashed in and both of Buffy's feet crushed Nuala's side as the Slayer swung in on a rope from the roof, the only place the Slayer Vampire hadn't checked. Nuala rolled and came to her feet, her body on fire with the pain.  

"Spry little thing, aren't you?"

"You noticed that, did you?" Spike groaned as he made it to his feet.  

"And you're supposed to stay dead for once."

"So sue me, I missed," Marco's voice came from her side. The assassin glanced at him, seeing he held a stake in each hand, point up. She laughed and lunged. Marco sidestepped and rammed a stake into her brain. She hit the floor hard and slid into the wall. Without looking at him, Nuala threw the stake at him. Marco had ducked in anticipation of that. The stake ricocheted off the wall (breaking the wall) and into the back of Marco's skull. He fell over without a sound.

Nuala was back on her feet, woozy, and was launched upon by both Spike and Slayer. With her good arm, she held off Buffy's blows like Keanu Reeves at the end of _The Matrix_. With Spike, she could afford the damaged arm to take the beating.  

In the other wing facing the room, Willow waited, trying to target the sunlight rays again, not wanting to fry Spike.  

Buffy launched one kick at Nuala's back, which was effortlessly blocked, but the one she planned at the same time struck Nuala squarely at the back of the head, sending her face-forward into the wall. Without seeing, Nuala's bad arm ripped across Spike's throat, tearing it out, and delivered a backhand to his face so hard his neck broke. He fell to the ground, out cold again.  

Nuala turned on Buffy, who leapt back, trying to keep out of reach of her blows. The Slayer reached for a cross at her back.  She pulled it out and flashed it at Nuala.  

The vampire laughed.  "You think that's going to be any good against—"

Marco's cavalry sword ran through Nuala's side and pinned her to the wall.  Nuala looked down, grabbed Cassie by the collar and tossed her over Buffy's head, on the other side of the room. The vampire slid off the sword and was about to strike again when a searing pain ripped through her chest.  

Nuala looked down and saw a cross sticking out of her heart.  

"Now you get to die," Buffy said, standing back.  "Doesn't feel so great, huh?"

Nuala's knees wavered as she grasped for the cross, her hands and torso on fire. She slowed burned with agony. She staggered away from Buffy as the Slayer watched. Nuala looked at Cassie, then Marco behind her, stirring slightly, and then at the closet. 

The vampire's eyes glowed. If she took out the closet door, the flames would ignite and possibly consume Cassie, which would prompt one of the two targets to save her, and die in the process.

The vampire charged the closet.

The room filled with fire. The windows blew out with the sudden pressure. A wall of flame blocked Cassie from the remaining three people in the room.  

"Cassie," Marco groaned as he stood.  "Fire."

Buffy held him back. "No, she's dead."

Marco turned his glare on her. "That didn't stop you, did it?"

With what strength he had, he punched Buffy across the face.

And then, Marco leapt through the fire.

He'd let it burn.


	7. Bloody Details

Chapter 6: Bloody Details 

Cassie awoke in a hospital, blurrily looking up into the smiling face of an intern. In the background, the stern voice of a doctor lectured on the dangers of hanging around old buildings in Sunnydale.

"You have gas pipes all over the place, running thither, running hither. You have no idea of how dangerous those old places are."

"You're absolutely right, doctor," Willow's voice said. "We'll be more careful."

"I work on construction, doc, so I'll be sure to give them the rest of the full nine yards later on, 'kay?"

Yeah, that was Xander.

"Can't leave y' alone fer two minutes in California, can I, Cassie?" came the sound of a soothing brogue.  

The intern pulled away, leaving the image of a smirking Irishman of her acquaintance.  

"Doyle?" she asked. She was amazed at how croaking her voice sounded.  

"Y' gotta stop smokin', love," he told her. "It'll be the death of you."

"Secondhand," she croaked, attempting to cough away the impediment. "Why?"

He sat down on the edge of her bed and smiled. "Why am I here? Silly question. When Marco was hurt, the college called yer parents in New York, and your father called LA, raving and threatening me to come here immediately to see what was the matter."

"Cordelia?"

"Nah, she had to stay in LA, lest she get a migraine o' mine and need t' report in. Angel too. They've got on odd bunch of people there, I must say. Wesley's a…dork, and—"

"Tell me something that _has_ changed," came the calm voice of Rupert Giles from behind him.

Doyle looked up, introduced himself, and Giles smiled at Cassie, then turned to the outside. It was an ER.

Buffy glided alongside Cassie's gurney. "Hey, nice of you to join us. We thought you were cooked for a moment there."

"What?"

Buffy explained what had happened up to the time Marco had hit her. "When I woke up soon after, Marco, well, walked through the fire… or he may have jumped. I'm not quite sure. I was a little out of it by then."

"Dead?"

"Vamp, yes. Brother, no such luck. He's got some nasty burns, and he's going to have a bad headache when he leaves, but he'll be staying overnight for now. You get to come home with me."

"Yippee." She managed to dredge up a weak smile.

Marco had a vision of Buffy, and then of Buffy leaving. And it wasn't a vision, he knew. He had woken up three times, and she had explained it all to him. He had asked her for some queer items, especially this late in the game, but she agreed anyway: some personal items back from the hospital staff, and to ask the priest to come down from his appointed rounds.

After that was done, and he fell asleep again, Buffy watched him. Aside from looking as though he'd been savagely beaten, he seemed rather peaceful. Almost as though he was where she'd been. Despite all she'd seen of him, he looked cute, almost cuddly, almost angelic…

_And _that_ was a bad word to use. Between guys with wings and tall dark and brooding…_

Buffy closed her eyes tightly. She couldn't lose control again. She'd allowed herself once, and that was self-indulgence as far as she was concerned. She had to get out for a few minutes. He'd be fine without her, if only for a little while.

Marco's eyes opened before the door did. He slowly reached above him and grabbed the headboard, pulling himself up. To his right, there was a janitorial cart with a bucket precariously balanced on the edge, and a mop leaning on it.  

Marco closed his eyes for a moment and let the scent waft into his nostrils. The annoyance smiled. "Hello, Nuala, I'm so glad you could come and visit me."

The huge vampire stood at the foot of his bed, her face properly morphed, ready to kill.

Cassie, Willow, and Tara managed to get Spike back to his crypt, Cassie's headband wound around his neck as a bandage. 

Cassie had needed to calm down a bit after the hospital. Buffy had continually assured her that her brother would be all right, and that Spike had needed her help. She had mindlessly begun to babble to a suddenly mute vampire until he had pressed a hand to her mouth, his eyes telling her it would be okay.

_And it will be,_ she thought. _After all, Marco's got a Slayer looking after him._

Now the two Wiccas and one New Yorker discussed how best to care for him. 

"If his windpipe's closed off, double or nothing he can't feed properly," Willow observed.

"M-Maybe we could do it intravenously?" Tara suggested. "A tube running from a blood bag into his esophagus?"

Cassie saw Spike's eyes widen almost comically, frowning a negative. "Oh, please," she giggled. "Do _not_ tell me the Big Bad is afraid of needles."

He grabbed up the notebook and pen he'd been given earlier and scribbled angrily, almost tossing it at Cassie, who read: _I'm not a bloody invalid!_

"Well, you're wrong about the 'bloody' part, pal," she shot back. She gently touched the cloth covering his torn throat. "And at least you're in better shape than Marco. He's been in and out of consciousness since Buffy got him to the hospital." Before she realized it, Cassie was fighting off tears again. Marco was as tough as they came, she knew this; but it still pained her that he got hurt.

Spike looked at her, not liking the way her eyes were shining. He took up the pen and wrote another message: _Go. The loverwiccas can take on from here._

She read the words through the blurring tears and glanced at him. "You sure?"

He nodded ever so slightly, making a shooing motion with one hand.

Willow smiled. "We'll take care of him, Cassie. Go see Marco."

Cassie grinned. "Thanks." To Spike: "I'll be back later." She turned to leave, then paused and turned back. She pressed a light kiss to his cheek, whispering in his ear, "Thank you." Then she was out like a shot. 

Marco looked at Nuala for the first time, studying her.  Her primary biting teeth had yet to grow back, but the rest of them were sharp enough for the task.  Despite her face belonging to the most gruesome creature in existence, her body was quite attractive, and made him wonder what the rest of her face had been like before the vampy look.

"You know, I'm disappointed that no one checked for remains," Marco stated.

Nuala shrugged. "They found a sharpened cross and assumed I was dust."

"Buffy's going to figure it out, you know. You don't incinerate a vampire and have nothing remain."

"And she'll think this through in time for her to save you?"

He thought a moment. "Probably not. But, truthfully, I'm surprised. I mean, doesn't anyone read Jeffery Deaver?  It could be one of his books."

"True…like _The Devil's Teardrop_."

Marco's eyes lit up. "You've read that! Thank you!"

She looked confused. "Fer what?"

"For being the only literate vampire I've ever met."

Marco jerked his foot to one side, and the bucket leapt off the cart, drawn by the string around his ankle. The contents slashed up and down Nuala's leg. The vampire screamed and leapt backwards, into the wall. He reached behind the headboard.

"You bast—"

Nuala was cut off by the foot-long throwing knife entering her chest and pinning her to the wall. The vampire reached for it, ready to break off the handle and slide off, when a slight tingling at her neck made her body go numb. Out of the corner of her eye, the small, wooden throwing knife protruded from the side of her neck.  

Marco slowly made his way out of the bed, walking on the dry side of the floor. He sat down on the edge of his bed and said, "So, is there anything you want to say before you die?"

"I don't want to die…"

He nodded thoughtfully. "Reasonable request. After all, after the people you've killed, you won't exactly be going to a highly pleasant resort… we don't know how long this will last, it hasn't exactly been done before, so you might want to say a few prayers, assuming you remember any."

Her eyes filled with sadness. "I…I…"

Marco sighed, trying to remember what language they would have prayed in, in the 1200s. Latin, perhaps, and the closest derivative he knew was Italian.  

"Padre Nostro…" he prompted, starting with the Our Father. She took up the prayer in time with Marco, and they prayed together, him leading her along. As it progressed, Nuala's face changed, turning human once more.

He decided that she was as beautiful as her vampire face was ugly. Her green eyes sparkled with moistness, making them gleam with light. She had wonderful cheekbones. He felt inclined to kiss her. As it was, he merely smiled at her. He bent over, slowly, dipped his fingers into the holy water on the floor, and picked up the string of piano wire he had hidden in the bucket. He looped the wire over her head as she finished the prayer.

Nuala giggled, almost girlishly. "That won't work on me, you loveable idiot!" she said, as though she were teasing him. "Vampires don't have to breathe!"

He nodded. "Humor me…and just one more prayer."

She began it again as he drew his damp thumb over her head, one line vertical, the other horizontal, in the shape of a cross. Though the flesh sizzled, Nuala's eyes only glowed brighter as the prayer went smoothly, rapidly.  

Marco gently kissed her on the forehead.  

"Amen," she finished.

Marco pulled tightly on the garrote. The piano wire cut through her throat, the holy water burning through all resistance, and the wire biting into the cartilage of her neck. With one burst of strength, the wire snapped into a straight line.  

"Oh," she said innocently.  "I see."

Nuala became a pile of dust on the floor. 

Marco fell back on the bed, exhausted.

Not much later, Doyle walked into the room, looking for Marco. He found him spread out on the bed, tired as all heck. He shrugged and scanned the room for a chair. He glanced down at the floor.

"What in God's name—can't anyone walk through a hospital without sliding on the damn floor?!"

Doyle braced himself against the wall, and sidestepped along the edge of the floor, where it was driest, continuing to look down. He stopped when he ran into the handle of the foot-long knife still protruding from the wall. He glanced at it, then looked back down at the floor, where a stake and a garrote lay on top of a pile of ash and two business cards.

He bent down and picked up the cards.  One was for a law firm named Wolfram and Hart.

The other was for Angel Investigations.

One was the employer.

The other would have been the next target.

Cassie found Doyle in her brother's hospital room, sitting beside the bed. One pair of blue eyes looked up to meet another. She smiled and waved from the hallway, then beckoned him outside so they could talk without disturbing Marco. 

The Irishman caught her in a gentle hug. "Good t' see y' back on yer feet, Cassie."

"Thanks, and I'm glad I didn't have to wait too long to see you again." She pulled back to look at him. "Can we talk a minute?"

Doyle saw the seriousness in her eyes, and knew something was wrong. Despite growing up in Brooklyn, she'd always kept a small part of her youth, her "fine sense of the silly", which showed in her eyes. Suddenly, the half-demon saw something of an accelerated, involuntary maturity there. It was almost as if her inner child had dived under its bed after seeing a monster coming from the closet. He nodded at her request and guided her to a set of chairs in the hall just outside Marco's room.

"Doyle, you got to know Marco pretty well when you were living with us, right?" she asked tentatively. 

"Well, I like t' think I did."

"Did you"—she shook her head and began again—"Have you ever seen anything dark in his eyes? Ever seen him act as though—he didn't have a soul?"

"I always thought he was a potentially scary bugger, but no, not really a vampire."

"Vampire's not what I'm aiming for." Cassie struggled for words for a moment. "Have you ever—see any sign of life or compassion just drain from his eyes? Seen a lack of remorse or conscience?"

"No' really." He furrowed his dark brows at her. "Cassie, where're y' goin' wi' this?"

"I saw something in his eyes earlier, Doyle. Like all of a sudden, there's a completely different personality wearing the face of someone I thought I knew." She paused. "He killed a demon virtually by himself and he didn't see fit to tell me. I had to find out from…someone else." She had remembered at the last minute to tread lightly around the topic of Spike, tiptoeing around a story she'd heard about a vampire ring of invincibility and a torture session. "Doyle, please tell me I'm imagining it. I'll believe you."

He sighed, his eyes sad. "I wish I could, Cassie. But for some reason, Marc wants t' protect y' from what he is, what he became somewhere along the line. He doesn't want y' t' worry."

"I'm not really as worried as I was before he came out here for classes." She swallowed. "I guess—I should let his decision stand. He's good here. He has friends. I just hope I can live with him and with what I know."

The half-conscious Marco tried not to laugh.

When Cassie would depart for home days later, she would only smile at her brother, believing that he knew nothing of what she suspected.  Even though he knew that what she suspected was dead wrong.

A day later, Cassie knocked on the crypt door, poking her head in. "Hello?" she called. "Spike?"

She noted the armchair positioned in front of the television. _Where did he get the power for that anyway? _she wondered. She walked around until she came upon the opening in the floor, complete with ladder leading down to the lower level. 

"Spike?" she tried again. This time, she saw a paper airplane sail across the space of the opening. Grinning, she climbed down, adjusting the bag on her shoulder. When her feet touched the stone floor, she turned to see him sitting up on his mattress. Several canary-yellow bruises marred his pale face, red marks were on either side his healing nose, and a thick white bandage circled his neck. 

He offered a smile and a hand raised in greeting.

"Hi. Were you sleeping?" she asked as she came closer.

"Until five minutes ago I was," he replied in a whisper. His throat had not yet healed enough for him to speak louder. "What're ya doin', traipsin' 'bout the markers this time o' day?"

She took the chair in the center of the room and scooted closer. "It so happens that I brought you a care package." With a small flourish, she took three thermoses from the bag. "So, what's your pleasure? Beef, pork, or O-positive?"

Spike glanced at the containers and gave her a confused look.

"I heard you've been 'bagging it' lately, so I thought it might be a good idea to bring you some. Buffy and the others were nice enough to tell me which places actually sold the stuff."

His eyes widened. "Y' didn't go t' Willy's, did ya?"

Cassie snorted. "Please, like I would. I'd feel safer at Caritas in LA. At least there the Host can back up the 'no violence' policy." She shook her head, smiling slightly at his concern. "No, they pointed me toward a few butcher shops and a private clinic." She poured the rich blood from one container into the cup and offered it to him. "I tried getting it to ninety-eight-point-six, but it came out more" she shrugged "well, feverish."

He grinned at how considerate she was being and slowly sipped it down. Thankfully, his throat had not been so damaged he couldn't swallow. He savored the taste, the warmth as it slid down into his belly. "Perfect," he rasped. "Thanks."

"You're welcome." She rooted around a moment until she extracted the protein bar for herself and tore into it. 

Spike took the thermos of pig's blood and poured out another cupful. "How're y' holdin' up, pet?"

She swallowed the mouthful of Cookie Dough flavor. "I'm okay. I only lost consciousness for a few seconds. Marco got the worst of it."

"How is the little bugger? Pretend I care."

"He's good. The hospital released him a few hours ago." She couldn't help but let out a little chuckle. "He doesn't like it that a vampire took him out by luck."

He shook his peroxided head. "He's the one who's damned lucky she didn't cave his skull in 'r burn 'im." He paused, thinking it wasn't a good idea to ask what he wanted to know. But he was never one for reining in his curiosity. "And Buffy?"

Cassie nodded. "She's okay. Think she's still a little shaky, having to deal with a vampire of that kind of power after being yanked away from heaven."

Spike nearly choked on a mouthful of blood. "You _know_?!" he exploded as loud as he could in his condition (which wasn't very). "Did she tell you?"

She was startled at the force of his reaction. "She didn't tell me, but she obviously told you."

"How?" he asked. "How could y' know without her tellin' you?"

"It may sound hokey, but I know because I'm Catholic." At his confused look, she elaborated. "She didn't commit suicide when she jumped. She jumped to save lives. St. Vincent de Paul said, 'To love another person is to see the face of God.' To her, God looked like Dawn, Willow, Xander… even you."

He snorted. "Yeah, right, she died t' save a soulless monster."

"But she treats you like a man. She treats you as she can only treat someone she cares for."

Spike looked at her thoughtfully, not daring to hope that Buffy could love him someday, maybe. She would probably say, "Been there, done that, different vampire." He decided to change the subject. "What was that ya said t' Nuala? _'Pog mo thoin'_?

Cassie blushed a deep pink. "It's the only Gaelic I knew that she would understand. It means 'Kiss my—'" she cut herself off by clearing her throat.

Spike grinned. "Why, Cassie, such language.  I'm proud of you."

Marco watched Cassie leave Spike's crypt, watching from behind a tomb.  He nodded sharply, then winced at the sharper pain in his head.  Sure she had gone from eyeshot, the younger Cattalano staggered toward the crypt.  

Spike, who for the second time that day had tried to get some rest—he had lied to Cassie…she _had_ woken him up—looked up and tried not to strain his throat but groaned.

"Stay there… I won't take too long," Marco said softly, trying not to give himself a headache. He righted a chair and straddled it, facing Spike with the chair back between them. "I just want to ask for a favor."

Spike raised a brow.

Marco chuckled. "I know, after all the hell you've been through lately, who am I to ask, right? In fact, have you been through…less pleasant episodes aside from the crud you've been inflicted with?"

Spike had to shake his head. The torture session with Glory had been… mercifully long ago.

"In any event, I want you to look out for Willow and Buffy when I'm gone."

"Expectin' to die?" Spike whispered.

Marco shook his head. "Enough wishful thinking. No, I'm sorry to say; but I'll be returning to New York at the end of the semester. After the little problems we've been seeing with Willow, and the fact of Buffy's…resurrection leaving her a little out of it, both of them need a keen eye on them. Now, I've seen the looks you've been giving Willow, they're almost as bad as mine. As for Buffy…you'll at least be looking at her body if nothing else. Not that I blame you too much, but for God's sake man, _try_ to be subtler. Agreed?"

Spike wondered what his response should be. He'd been planning on doing that anyway, Marco or no Marco, but should he give the annoyance the satisfaction?

Marco held up a hand. "Just think about it. You don't have to say a darned thing. It's just that…Willow's scaring me, and I can't do a darned thing about it. Her abuse of power is…more than anyone should be allowed to tolerate. I don't know what you'd call raising the dead, but I call it an abuse of power. So I do the only thing I can…I go."

Marco nodded, checking his internal checklist… that was all he had to say. He stood and walked to the crypt door.

"Why…?"

Cattalano turned. "Why what?"

"Could've killed me. Why not?"

Marco thought. He could have killed Spike? When? …Oh, yeah, the crossbow thing with Nuala. "Because I couldn't get away with it. At that range, no one would have believed that I had _accidentally_ shot you in the heart. After all, I never miss."  He shrugged.  "Besides, you followed my ground rules: you didn't eat my sister, you didn't let her get hurt, and so, you get to live…or un-live, as the case may be."


	8. At the end of the Day

Epilogue: At the End of the Day 

**Two months later.**

_I, Marco Cattalano, stormed up to the Summers home, ready to leave for good.  I was all packed and ready to go home.  I had yet to tell Willow, et al, that I wasn't coming back from New York this Christmas.  I would be content to stay away from Sunnydale forever. _

_I knocked on the door, expecting the house to be still awake at one in the morning.  The door slid open.  And Spike was there! _Spike!

"Can I help you?" he asked in his painful accent, making "Can" sound like "Ken."

_"I want to see one of the ladies of the house, if possible. I guess one of them is still awake; otherwise you wouldn't be here. I can't imagine Buffy sleeping as long as you were indoors. At the moment, I'd even see Tara." The name of Willow was still stuck on my tongue, and I couldn't bear to think about her too much, or about what I feared she would become._

_Spike gave me an even slimier little smile than usual. "Little slow, aren't you? Tara's not 'ere anymore. Moved out a while ago. As fer me, I was just leaving."_

_Spike walked out and I let myself in, closing the door behind me, looking very confused at the vampire's back. I closed the door after him, and stepped into the living room. No one there. I was about to turn around and leave when I heard—_

_"Marco? What are you doing here?"_

_I turned at the sound of Dawn's voice. Her arm was in a cast, and her eyes were filled with venom and the residual effects of a sedative.  _

_"Wanted to…what happened to your arm?"_

_Without thinking, Dawn snapped, "Willow—"_

_That name was all I needed to hear. I bolted for the stairs, and Dawn tried to block me. "It was an accident," she began._

_"Get out of my way, or that arm will be the least of your worries!" I snapped. "This has to stop!  NOW!" I growled._

_Dawn sidestepped out of my way and I bolted up the stairs two at a time. I dashed for Willow's room and burst through the half-open door (you can have the doors partway open when you have nothing but estrogen in the house). I slammed the door behind me so hard, it almost bounced back and slapped me upside the head._

_I turned toward the bed and down at Willow. The sheets came up to mid-chest. I could see that her nightgown was damp and almost see-through. For the males in the audience, whose minds are drenched in hormones, the sight did not "turn me on," as the locution goes. Exactly the opposite, in fact, as I scanned the rest of Willow. She was covered in sweat and almost shaking, signs I identified with detoxification, or withdrawal. I followed my instincts and leapt into bed with her._

Dawn had run to Buffy's room almost immediately after Marco broke for Willow's. The Slayer had hung the last string of garlic moments before, and was sitting on her bed when her little sister entered.  

"I think Marco's going to hurt Willow." 

With the speed of a Slayer, she was at the door to Willow's room. Ready and willing to pound Marco if he hurt her friend under her own roof, she peered in through the crack of the door.__

Marco lay down atop the covers alongside Willow and hugged her, not thinking about the actions. Almost in reflex, Willow returned the hug, being very needy for physical contact. She explained the events of the past few weeks: Tara had left for the same reasons as he was going to; Willow had turned Amy the rat back into Amy the human witch, they went out partying, playing with other people like toys, and then Amy and Willow turned to a guy named Rack, a magic version of a drug dealer; Marco made a note to find him, hunt him down, and burn the establishment with Mr. Rack inside. It was the typical drunkard's sequence: you lose your job, your spouse, and your home.

After she finished, Marco held her for…he lost track of the time. He slowly pulled back from her far enough lick the tip of her nose. Willow pulled back, confused and smiling, wiping it.  

"What was that for?"

Marco smiled, flashing his teeth in an unusually joyful, luminescent smile. "It's called being playful, you gotta problem with that? Puppies do it all the time."

Like the animal of the age he described, Marco seized an earlobe and pulled on it with his lips over his teeth, and growled playfully. Willow laughed and retaliated in kind.  

Buffy smiled, confused, and walked back to her room to reassure her young sister that Willow wouldn't be beheaded that night. 

Marco and Willow continued to play like children rolling around on the bed together. He slowly wound the bed sheet more and more around her, almost mummifying her in it. He kissed her neck lightly, playfully, and she giggled with pleasure. He let his hand lightly wander over her, the only mark of its presence being a highly pleasurable sensation that felt like heat. When her eyes rolled back into her head and she moaned softly, Marco moved back, not kissing her; letting her imagine whomever she would.  

Time folded into itself. Willow's back arched like a bow and she emitted a high-pitched squeak before passing out. Once she fell back on the bed, Marco gathered her up in his arms and kissed her lightly on the forehead. He wondered if he should leave or hold her for the night, staying there if she should wake up and need something to cling to. While he himself hated to admit it, even he needed someone every once in a while, someone to hold on to. Everyone needed to. Despite age, social "constraints"—a fancy name for saying "I don't need anyone"…a pretty fantasy—everyone needed another human being to hold.  

Marco decided to make his presence known to the lady of the house, lest she get the wrong idea by his presence in Willow's bed during her fragile state. He slipped onto the floor and silently padded his way to Buffy's room. Seeing light peer out under the door, he knocked.  

"Come in, Marco."

He hesitated and thought. _Of course Dawn got her, but why wasn't I pounded into mush?_

He entered, closing the door behind him, and found the Slayer on the bed again, legs crossed, back against the headboard. She looked disturbed, and not in a "take me away I'm a loony toon" way.

"I saw what you did for her. It was sweet," she said, sounding more alive than she had before, but…disturbed. He couldn't find another word for it. 

He cocked an eyebrow and moved the chair between her and the windows, sitting about a foot from the bed. "How much were you there for?"

She furrowed her brows, confused. "I was there for the start, and left." She sat up with a start. "You didn't…you couldn't have…? I mean, you could have, but you didn't"—she let out a sound similar to a whimper—"did you?"

Marco smiled, letting his teeth show through. It was a bright, glamorous… unearthly smile. It was a smile Buffy had never seen on his face before, one of tranquility and peace, and joy.  

"No, I didn't do anything improper with Willow. I did for her what my sexual mores allowed me to. Now, what can I do for you? You seem…disturbed. It's better than feeling like your heart's been ripped out, as in from Heaven, but…"

Buffy's eyes glanced away. "I did something…wrong."

Marco smiled. "The proper term is 'Bless me father, for I have sinned.'"

She looked up. "Huh?"

"Confession." He shrugged, and placed his palm against her cheek, delivering a soft, healing warmth. "Don't worry. What could you have done? Have sex with Spike?" he joked.

The way she blinked—almost flinched—guaranteed that Marco would ram the point of a sharpened cross through Spike's hands, feet, lungs, stomach, and other body parts that morning….later.

"Why did you come here tonight?" she asked.

"To say goodbye."

"Why? Are you leaving?"

He nodded. "No one needs me anymore. Everyone knows your secret now. They can help you. Willow… I'm not needed here anymore, and it's not worth putting up with everything around here. I _especially_ draw the line at traipsing down the college steps singing 'Lord of the Dance' and 'Man of La Mancha' at varying intervals. I expected this to be a nice, quiet suburb, and it's not.  It was worth the risk to be of use, but…"

Marco graced her with that smile again, and kissed her on the forehead. "Sleep well, Buffy." He slid his hand over her cheek in a final caress, and stood, walking toward the door, ready to spend the night holding Willow, and soothing her fears away.

"What are you, Marco?"

Cattalano stopped and turned. "Whatever do you mean?"

"You know what I mean. You're not super-wacko guy, yet you are. You scare Willow and now you're… you. What are you?"

He stood there and flashed the smile. "Whatever I'm needed to be."

As Marco Cattalano turned to walk back and hold Willow in his arms, one unbidden conclusion came to his mind.  _And for right now, what I am is needed here._


End file.
